Old, Unhappy, Far-off Things
by Avalon1632
Summary: Chloe has spent more than half her life wanting to leave Arcadia Bay, a backwater colony in the Terminus Systems. The other half she's spent waiting for something to happen. She finally gets both wishes when the colony is attacked and her long lost best friend flies to her rescue. Inspired by Mass Effect.
1. Single in the Field

Chapter I: Single in the Field (Chloe) - Monday

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AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

I'm back! Mostly. Still busy with uni. Christ on a bicycle, this shit is far more time-consuming than it has any damn right to be. Plus, I made the truly terrible decision to go to a uni 2+ hours away from where I live, a journey that requires taking a bus that literally hasn't been on time in two years. Bloody timetable is pretty much theoretical at this point. Anyways, just wanted to update y'all, make sure you know I'm not dead or anything. Plus, I actually got to write something that wasn't a multi-thousand word essay, which was hella nice. Admittedly I'm still too busy to work on the main stories and these two were mostly complete already so it was only editing and writing final scenes for both, but still. Writing! Egad, I have missed it. Anyway, I'm cutting this overly enthusiastic ramble short with the news that I'm getting ahead on my uni work, so I should be able to start reupdating regularly sometime in December/January. And Scene!

This one is based on a video game series called Mass Effect. Even if you're not a gamer, you've probably heard of/run into Mass Effect online somewhere. Just in case you haven't, here's the low down. It's a Space Opera sci-fi series revolving around a War Hero (/Colonist/Spacer :D) called Commander WhateverYouWantButIt'llNeverActuallyBeMentionedOnceEvenByYourLoveInterests Shepard wandering around the galaxy, adopting hamsters and punching Batarians and getting involved in random passers-by's problems. Oh, there's also supposed to be a big plot about 'Reapers' or something, but we've dismissed that claim. :)

The actual idea for writing this came from a sudden and very vivid mental image of Chloe meeting up with Jack and them both heckling the shit out of Max. Too amusing an idea to pass up, so here we are. Hopefully I'll get to have that happen at some point.

Oh, and this won't be following the storyline anywhere close to exactly. All I'm really taking from Mass Effect is the world, a few of the characters, and Max's 'backstory'. Or at least thus far, anyway. I've not gotten much of a plan of where this story is going, so I might decide to follow along with one of the plotlines for at least a little while. Oh, and I'm using the Normandy SR-2/SSV Normandy SR-2 rather than the SSV Normandy SR-1, mostly because I wanted shuttle scenes. Shuttles are cool.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

* * *

"Ugh. I'm soooo bored." I roll over on Rach's bed and flash her my best forlorn please-play-with-me puppy stare.

"You're always bored, Chloe. And I didn't invite you, you know. You can leave whenever you want." Rach doesn't even look up from whatever she's working on at her desk.

"I know I can, and I'm gonna. Only if you come with me though?" I grin nervously at her, hoping to fuck I don't piss her off. Again. "Please?"

She sighs. "I really can't right now, Chloe. I've got to get this done, or Mark's going to have my head."

She still doesn't look up at me, doesn't even stop typing, for fucks sake.

I take a deep breath and pull myself up from the bed. "Okay, fine. I'll fuck off then. Pretty sure Kate's gonna be back soon, anyway." I get outta there before Rach can say anything else. I didn't wanna hear another fucking apology.

My and Kate's apartment was on the opposite side of town from Rach's, and I didn't want to walk down the main streets and risk running into anyone I'd fucked over, or who'd fucked me over, so I head out of town and go through the fields and farms around the outside. I walk through the idyllic, pretty-af, boring-as-shit landscape, grumbling and kicking at the ground as I walked. Fucking Rachel and her Fucking Job keeping her Fucking Busy and-

I barely manage to stop before I walk into the floating blue-purple sac. Eurgh. Gross fucking things. Another thing I hated about this planet. Eden Prime was filled with them, and some asshole on the colony commission board had decided that made them worth moving over here too.

Idiot.

I'd punched one once, when I was a kid. Bad mistake. It popped and covered me with the worst smelling shit. The smell hadn't gone for weeks afterwards, like I'd stepped in the Bog of Eternal Stench. Even when I was as pissed off as I was, I didn't want to deal with that shit again, so I step warily around the Gasbag and keep walking.

The only people I ran into out there were farmers, so they just ignore me. Which was fine by me. I didn't wanna talk to anyone right now.

I make it into the apartment and flop down onto our crappy couch just in time to see Kate walk in. She beams happily when she sees me. "Hi Chloe!"

Kate and I had been roommates since we left Blackwell. We weren't really friends at school, we just sort of... ended up living together. Hella weird, right? I thought it was, anyway. Literally no idea how it happened. Worked out pretty well though. Kate was kinda quiet, hella cool, and a hella talented artist. Most of our walls were covered in her sketches. So, yeah. Best roommate ever.

I smile back. "Hey Kate."

She immediately stops walking and frowns at me, her eyebrows furrowing in well-meaning concern. And that was the one thing that I didn't like about her. She was almost as nosy as M-om. Damnit. "Chloe? Are you okay? Did something happen?"

I shrug. "I'm fine. Just hella bored. Sucks being the only gainfully unemployed one of us."

Kate tilts her head. "It's not just you. Dana isn't in work either right now."

I roll my eyes. "She doesn't count. She's still living on hella royalties from that self-help shit she wrote."

Kate shrugs, dropping her bag by the door and heading into the kitchen. I hear a glass clink, then the tap start going. "Have you tried talking to Cam? He called yesterday, asking if you'd reconsidered his offer."

I roll my eyes again. "Yeah, not happening, Kate. It's a hella shitty option." Camestis was the one Turian in Arcadia Bay, hell, he was probably the only one on the entire planet, and the proud owner of a barely-making-even tattoo parlour. Barely anyone would go to him, for the obvious reason (racist assholes), so getting a job with him would be career-fucking-suicide.

"Well, then there's always-"

The entire house suddenly shakes as the familiar thunk-clap of a ship arriving in orbit echoes across the entire area, but way louder, and way heavier than usual. I hear a smashing noise from downstairs and someone swearing hella loudly.

There's a couple of seconds of quiet after the shaking stops, until we hear another familiar sound.

Gunfire.

I pull myself up from the couch and hurry over to the window. "What the fuck? Who's shooting shit aroun-"

I pull back away from the window again as a ship swoops over us. I blink at it in confusion. I didn't recognise the design, and I'd seen a hella lot of ships. It looked kind of like a wasp. A weird, purple wasp. As it flew over the town, a bunch of blobs dropped from it, smashing into buildings and squares. Every time one hit the ground, our whole building shook again.

"Enkindlers..." Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Kate was a devout member of the Hanar religion. She'd been part of the church/group/Jello-gogue/whatever for longer than I'd known her. It didn't bother me or anything, whatever made her happy, right? Did mean that she couldn't swear for shit though. "What's happening?"

I breath out heavily, quickly coming to the conclusion I know Kate's gonna take a second more to get to. "Someone's attacking us."

"Attacking us? Is it Batarians again?"

I shake my head, watching another ship go over. "No fucking way. I don't know who these assholes are, but they're not Batarians."

"By the light... We need to get out of here."

I nod. "Exactly what I was gonna say. I'm pretty sure I've still got my codes for the train, so we just gotta get there." I worked there for, like, three months and they never got around to deleting my codes. Morons. Doubt they'd even heard of network security. "Then we can get to the port and get on whatever fucking transport will take us. " I thought for a sec about going to get Rach, but she'd be with Jefferson by now, so the dude'd get her to a transport himself. He was rich and important enough to get preferential seats.

She takes a breath, muttering to herself "Okay, okay. We can do this, we can do this. It's just to the train." and wringing her hands.

I smirk, and she looks up quickly when she realises I heard her. "Hell yeah we fucking can. You know me, Kate, I know this place like the back of my..." I frown at my hand. "Huh. That's new." I say, voice full of mock surprise.

It takes her three full seconds and another deep breath before she looks up at me again and smiles, her voice sounding steady. "Thanks, Chloe. So, what do we do? How are we going to get there?"

I shrug. "If we stay off the streets, we should be good. One sec." I sprint back into my room and yank open the bottom drawer, then I pull out the fake bottom. The gun was right where I left it, and I quickly grab it, give it a quick once-over to check it still works, and run back to Kate's side. "Right. Now we can go."

She glances nervously at the gun, but doesn't say anything. Even Kate's gotta realise it's better safe than sorry. Neither of us wanted to get caught and taken. If these people were Batarians, we'd be sold into slavery in a fucking heartbeat.

I ease open the door and look through it, keeping the gun down and to my side. I still hated Step-douche, but I was ready to admit some of the shit he taught me was kinda handy.

The street below us was clear, but people around us were starting to scream as whatever dropped from that ship started to cause shit.

"Come on." Kate and I hurried down the steps from our apartment and sprinted to an alley across the road.

We'd been walking, sneaking, running wildly, and hiding for, like, thirty minutes without any problems. Whoever these assholes were, they were blind as fuck. Also, I was totally a badass ninja.

Don't think we were lucky or anything, 'cause the trip was shitty as hell. Whoever these assholes were, they weren't taking prisoners. There were bodies everywhere, just... lying in the street, full of bullets. They were the lucky ones.

Someone had put clumps of these giant... spikes, in any large open space they could find, and... speared some of the bodies on them. I tried to keep Kate from looking, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't look away either. I... recognised some of the bodies.

Poor bastards.

So, yeah. We made it to the station without any many problems. But, turns out, we weren't the only dumbasses to have the train station idea.

There were about a dozen of the fuckers, standing about in the loading docks next to the train line. Hella luckily, we spotted them before they saw us. Kate and I immediately hid in the stacks of huge storage crates and peered through whatever gaps we could find at the metallic figures just standing around.

They were tall, about my height, with shiny metal skins, and giant flashlights in their heads. Something about them seemed familiar, but I was pretty sure I hadn't seem them before. I mean, I'd worked with bots for two years and I'd seen a lot of them, but none like that.

"What are they?" Kate whispers from down next to me.

Wait. I remember... something. An old story, I guess, that one of my mom's friends told one time. She was a Quarian, on Pilgramage from the Migrant Fleet. "I think they're... I think they're Geth."

"Geth, here? But I thought the Alliance pushed them back to the Veil? What do they want with us?" Oh, of-fucking-course Kate knew the story. Nerd. I didn't buy that bullshit the Alliance tried to spin about the Geth attacking the Citadel. Everyone knew that stuff was just a cover-up for something. I had no idea what, but it was definitely a cover-up.

"Dunno. You wanna go ask?"

She shakes her head, hella emphatically.

"Thought not. Right, how do we get past the fuckers?"

"I'm an artist, Chloe, not a tactician. Maybe if we just hide until they leave?"

The second I opened my mouth to respond, a series of explosions racked the station. The stacks of crates wobbled, and for a second I thought they were gonna fall on us, but some-fucking-how they stayed up. Whoever stacked those things deserves a fucking raise.

Barely a second later, a couple of Geth spun and hit the ground as someone started shooting at them. The ones still standing (still alive? could you say that about machines?) all spun and immediately split and got into cover, shooting back.

Kate and I watched the fight with hella interest. Well, I did. Kate mostly just looked concerned for the health of whoever was involved. Too fucking nice for her own good, that one.

It barely lasted five minutes before all the Geth were sparking piles of spare parts on the ground. A tall, thin figure appeared from the same direction of the bullets and walked over to the middle of the Geth, holding a rifle.

He spotted one Geth still moving about on the ground and, with lazy efficiency, blasted its flashlight head off. After checking the rest of the bodies, he pulled off his helmet, and we got our first look at his face.

A Turian? Here? That was almost as much of a surprise as the Geth. Unless Cam had been hiding an ex-military brother in his basement, this guy had to have gotten here recently. I knew he hadn't hitched a ride with the Geth, obviously, so... there was a ship here! Fan-fucking-tastic!

"Kate, I think that guy has a ship. We've got to get him to take us with him."

She blinks. "We're leaving? The planet?"

"Hell yeah, we're leaving. Unless you wanted to stay with the Geth, but I'm pretty sure they're not the type to offer you tea and biscuits and polite shit like that."

She's still hesitating. "But, what about after they leave? What if someone's-"

"I don't think anyone's gonna survive this if they don't get offworld, Kate. We both saw what those fuckers-" I spit on the ground. "did with those spike things. They don't want anything from this shithole, they just wanna kill us all and run off back behind their fucking shithole Veil!"

Kate winces. "We're supposed to be sneaking, Chloe, aren't you being a bit-"

"Loud?" A voice interrupts from above us. We both look up to see the Turian standing over us, giving us both an amused look. "Yes. Yes, you are."

We both stumble back from him, and the asshole laughs quietly at us. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just overheard those plans of yours. You want offworld, Chloe and Kate?"

I stare at him, narrowing my eyes. "Maybe. You offering?"

He smirks. "Well, the Commander has a soft spot for helping out civilians, so the hell I'd catch for not helping you would be way worse than the hell I'd go through helping. Plus, you know, I'm kind of the heroic type." I roll my eyes as he strikes a 'heroic pose' that makes him look kind of ridiculous. Kate giggles next to me. "So, yeah, I am. You interested?"

I tilt my head. "The Commander?"

"They're... sort of my boss. We were in the area when we caught a distress call, so we came to check things out."

I narrow my eyes at the hella subtle brush-off. Dude gave me literally nothing from that whole sentence. "Who're you with? You're definitely not Hierarchy. You with the Council?"

He snorts. "Uh, no. My government and I don't really get along. The Commander is with the Council though. And the Alliance. Sort of." He frowns, and I immediately recognise the expression as one I'd seen focused on me for my entire life. Turns out exasperation looks the same on Human and Turian faces. "You're asking a lot of damn strange questions for someone whose home planet is getting attacked by Geth."

I shrug. "You could be anyone, dude. I may be from a backwater planet, but I'm not stupid."

He grins. "Touche. Well then? Any other questions for me before you'll let me mount a dashing rescue?"

I shrug. "Just one. What's your name?"

His face splits into a grin. "Garrus. Garrus Vakarian."

I nod. "You know us already, so let's just get on with it. What's the plan?"

He waves over at the train terminal. "I'm meeting the Commander at the port, so I need to reactivate the train. Either of you know how to unlock that thing? I could work it out with my omni-tool, obviously, but I'd need to do some calibrations to get it working."

"I know the codes," I offer. Shit, dude had an omnitool? Those things were expensive as fuck. I had to make do with these shitty haptic gloves to interface with computers.

He grins again. "Great! This might be easier than I thought. You go input them, and I'll cover you." He pulls out his rifle and takes up position. When I don't move, he nods encouragingly at me.

What the hell, I guess.

I sneak over to the station console, holding my breath as I wait for bullets to start flying past me. They surprisingly don't, and I make it to the console easily. It barely takes me three seconds to get the thing booted up, and to put in my old log-in. Whatever idiot was supposed to look after this shit was incompetent as fuck, seriously. I mean, who doesn't delete employee profiles when you fire their ass? But hey, don't look gift-Geth in the mouth. I quickly put in my codes and grin as the console flashes green to let me know the train was unlocked.

I look back and wave. I was gonna yell, but I stopped myself at the last second. I had no idea how good the Geth's hearing was, and I didn't wanna tempt shit like that.

A couple seconds later, Garrus appeared from the boxes and wandered over, Kate on his heels. "Not bad, Chloe. Not bad. You're quicker than some C-Sec agents."

I snort. "That's not much of a fucking compliment, Garrus. C-Sec is fuckin' useless." What? The assholes on the Citadel aren't exactly favoured fucking folks out here, for a list of damn good reasons. Pretty sure half the colony hates the Alliance just as much though. Dumbasses.

" _I_ was a C-Sec agent." Garrus drawls.

I grin. "Exactly."

With a roll of his eyes, the Turian leads us over to the train. He taps a few keys, and his mandible-things click when he realises the lock is really gone. Not sure what that expression meant on a Turian, but I was gonna take it as a hella impressed thank you.

Kate and I quickly sit down as the train launches off. Garrus doesn't even wobble, the fucking asshole.

When we're comfortably on our way, I call out to him. "So, where are we going again?"

"Port Terminal," He calls back. "The commander'll be meeting us there." Without saying anything else, he turns back to keep peering around the sides of the train. Not sure why he bothers though, we're going fast enough that anyone who wants to fuck with us is gonna have a hell of a time doing it.

"Fuckin' A." I mutter, rubbing my hand over my head. Shit, Geth Invasions are hella noisy. Why can't they keep the damn noise down?

I gently elbow Kate, smiling reassuringly when she flinches and flicks her eyes up to meet mine. "You doin' okay?"

"I'm okay." She tries to smile back, but it's not convincing at all. Girl can't lie for shit.

"Kate..."

She shakes her head. "Would you be okay with... this?" She waves at the city around us.

I shrug. "Guess not, if I actually gave a shit about the place. Right now, I just wanna get us out of here."

She frowns at me, eyebrows scrunching together over hella watery eyes. "But Chloe, all these people..."

"-Are assholes," I interrupt. "who might not deserve this shit happening to them, and yeah it totally sucks, but I'm not gonna lose any sleep over them."

She takes a deep breath, clasps her hands together, and smiles sadly. "They're still people, Chloe, even if they have been unpleasant to us."

I snort, and look off at the shit exploding all around us. Kate is a way better person than me. Though, thinking 'bout it, that's not really hard. I'm kind of an asshole. But a fun one. That's more important, right?

Right?

Whatever.

The rest of the trip went by in total silence. Well, except for the gunshots and explosions and screaming. Other than that, totally quiet.

Yeah...

* * *

Garrus pulls on his helmet and somehow manages to hop off the train before it stops moving, pulling out his gun and moving forward into a military something-or-other. 10-4, hup. He scans the station with hella focused intent and, when he's satisfied that there are no Geth around (Like they're hard to miss... Dude, they've got flashlights for heads. Those fuckers are not subtle.), he waves us over.

Kate, bless her fuckin' soul, tries to be quiet and sneaky. She creeps over to him, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible, barely making any noise at all.

It's actually kind of impressive.

Then, I come in and totally ruin her whole ninja vibe by traipsing over there and calling out "Hey Garrus, where to now?"

The Turian gives me a familiar, long-suffering glare, then turns his gaze up to the sky, beseeching whatever benevolent sky-things are still paying attention to his clearly cursed ass. "Spirits, why did I offer to help these two?"

I shrug. "Masochism maybe? I dunno, dude. You probably did something hella terrible in a past life." I frown. "Do Turians believe in reincarnation?"

He shakes his head. "Not really. We're more of a get born, do your duty, then die sort of people."

I nod sagely. "That's hella unsurprising. So, where the hell are we going now?"

"There's a shuttle waiting in Dock 15." He answers, rattling off the details like he's reading them from a list. "The ground teams are supposed to meet there in 30 minutes and we're damn near a mile away, so we'd better get moving. Keep an eye out for Geth." He taps something on the side of his helmet and, after waiting a couple of seconds for a beep, nods. "Right. This way."

He points off down a street, and we head into the city, sticking to the side streets and alleyways. Garrus seems to know where we're going, which is hella awesome, 'cause I don't have a clue. I only really knew the main roads around here. Step-Douche was a paranoid ass, but he was right about not going into dark alleys on my own. That shit is seriously dangerous. Which sucks, 'cause I really like dark alleys. They're the only place to get decent meth on this planet. (Or so I'm told. Ahem.)

We hit an apartment block courtyard filled with those weird spikes. Luckily, they're all empty. Guess everyone got out of this building before the Geth could turn 'em into colonist-kebabs or whatever. Garrus guides us up the stairs, through a door into a completely destroyed apartment. Furniture is smashed, windows are shattered, and there were holes in the fucking wall. Still looked better than me and Kate's first place after Blackwell. The entire place perpetually smelled like burnt Chinese food.

Garrus leads us over to one, then points to the building opposite. "We need to get in there." There's a bunch of broken scaffolding between us, resting on some busted cars and shit down on the road below us. It... does not look steady. "We should be able to climb over all this."

I stare at him like he's grown a second head. "You want us to _what?_ "

He frowns. "We need to get over there. Don't worry so much, it's gonna be fine."

I wave over at a wide open space down to the left of us. "Dude, there's, like, a whole space over there we could go. Why are we playing at being fucking Tarzan? Let's just go round."

Garrus points to the park I'm looking at. Specifically, towards one corner of it. I almost go cross-eyed trying to stare at what he's looking for, and my mouth drops open when I finally see it. I thought it was some weird statue art at first, but... "What the fuck is that?"

"That," Garrus says, drily. "is a Colossus."

The _thing_ is a huge four-legged walker, easily twice my height (and I'm 5'9), and made of some shiny metal that gives it a kind of stormtrooper-look. The huge headlight shines about the park as the Colossus looks at everything.

"Woah."

He smirks. "Woah is right. We really, really don't want to get up close to that damn thing, so this is our only option."

I groan, throwing out a hella scary badass glare when Kate smiles behind her hand. She giggles quietly. Huh. Maybe not so badass. Whatever. I sigh. "Fine, but if you get us killed and I end up on one of those spike things, I'm coming back and kicking your bony Turian ass all the way back to Palaven."

"Damn." Garrus grins. "Yes ma'am. I'll do my best to not get you killed. Getting you two killed would kind of ruin my whole heroic rescue thing, anyway."

I nod my head in acknowledgement. "Damn right."

Even Kate bobs her head in solidarity. "Yes, I would rather not fall to my death. It seems like an unpleasant way to go."

Those spikes flash in my head and I shudder. But not the worst way to go.

I take a breath. "Right, okay then. Let's do this shit."

I pause. "Uh, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"How do we do this shit?"

He chortles for a sec, then holsters his rifle. "Just follow my lead." And with that, he takes a huge leap from the wall, landing on a big flat piece of metal panelling that lay across a couple of the bigger bits of wreckage. Then, he starts climbing, going up the scaffolding like it's a fucking ladder.

Kate breaths out hella deeply. "Wow."

"Yeah... you wanna go next?"

She shakes her head, but... "Okay. Here goes." She takes a running jump, landing surprisingly gracefully on the same flat bit of metal Garrus did. I blink. Huh. Guess that teaches me. Never underestimate the quiet ones.

I wait until she climbs off the panel, then take a deep fucking breath of my own. "Right. Nothing to it. Just gotta run, jump, land. Easiest shit ever. Come on, Price, you can do this." I run forward and-

I stop right at the edge of the wall. "Nopenopenope, I can't fucking do this."

Garrus and Kate are both looking up at me at this point, but I can't really focus on them very well. All I can see is the ground underneath them, and all the spikey shit poking out of the wreckage. If I miss, I'm not even gonna have time to notice I'm dead. On a scale of sprained ankle to pancake, I'm gonna make one convincing breakfast. (An1) Or I'll actually hit one of those spikes. Not sure which'd be worse. One second I'm me, then next I'm Chlo-kab. Wouldn't that be a fuckin' sight for the Geth? Just walking up to find someone's kebab-ed themselves of their own accord. Saves them the bother of... I take a breath.

I look down again and-oh dog. Okay, okay. Come on Price, you can do this. It's fucking nothing. Just a little jump and-

I jump.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

I make the panel.

When I manage to untangle myself, and start climbing onto the scaffolding, Garrus hisses "Don't move!"

I immediately froze. What can I say, the dude'd been pretty straight with us so far. I stopped just in time to see a hella bright light blare through the wreckage. Shit. The Colossus had gotten nosey, and the fucker had come over to check us out.

I didn't even realise I'd been holding my breath.

It peered over at us like a curious puppy, the light flickering as it blinked.

A minute went by...

Then two...

My nose itched.

Five minutes of held-breath (from Garrus), mentally repeated swearwords (from yours fuckin' truly, seriously my goddamn nose fucking _itched_ ), and frantic-prayers (those were from me too. Nah, just kidding. Kate all the way) later, we all relaxed as the Colossus stomped away.

After a quick check to make sure we're all okay (Which was kinda hard, 'cause the Colossus was still in earshot (does that thing even _have_ ears?) so he couldn't yell and apparently Kate and I both suck at lipreading. In our defence though, it's not like he actually has lips.), Garrus keeps going, pulling himself up onto the next building. Kate follows, at a way slower pace, very carefully climbing from bar to bar.

I managed to catch up with her pretty quickly. I worked at a rock climbing gym for a couple months until I got bored and went to work on a building site instead. So, this was just like old times.

By the time we got to the building, Kate, being the adorably short lil' person she was, found that she couldn't actually climb up onto the next ledge. She gave it a disgruntled glare and turned to me. "Uh, Chloe? Would you mind helping me up, please?"

I shrug, trying not to laugh. "Sure. One sec." I plant my feet in places where I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna slip, then interlace my fingers. "Come on, short people first."

Kate rolls her eyes, but she puts her foot in my hands and I hurl her up to the ledge like a caber. Garrus manages to catch her with one hand before she falls back down, which was pretty cool.

I pull myself up with way less grace, just sorta flumpfing down onto the floor. I lie there for a second, running my hand over my face and letting out a hella long, hella deep breath. "That. Was. Fucking. Close."

Garrus snorts. "Had it all under control. Never any danger at all."

I lift my hand and stare at him, raising my eyebrow.

He shrugs, and his mandibles clack in an expression that I'm pretty sure means 'what? I totally did'.

I sigh. Damnit, I like the asshole Turian.

Before I get too long to consider my newfound affection for him, the Turian in question suddenly speaks "We should get moving." He grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet. The Turian bastard actually tried dragging me down the fucking stairs before I pushed him away and told him where he could stick his damn talons.

He grinned at me, but let go, and we got moving.

Asshole.

We head down the building stairs and out into a street coming off the Colossus' park. Garrus quickly leads us the hell the other way, and we head out into another largish square. This one is filled with the weirdest looking hedgerows. Someone cut them in the shape of... I tilt my head. Actually, what the fuck _are_ they in the shape of?

Garrus chuckles, pointing out one of the shapes. "You Humans really like that one, don't you? You really should learn the meanings of things before you just take them from other cultures."

I follow his finger/talon to what looks kind of like a distended duck crossed with a pile of iron shavings and a lawnmower. "What... is it?"

"Fertility symbol. It's an old Turian fertility spirit. It, uh... represents a..." Garrus coughs. "certain part of the Turian anatomy."

"Wow." I pause. "That's totally quackers."

Kate groans. Garrus just gives me a confused look. Damn. Guess the pun didn't translate. I shrug. "Human joke. Don't worry about it."

He nods, still looking hella baffled. "O-ookay. Uh, I think we need to go this way." We take a sharp left and head down a wide open road. The walk was quiet again. We were all keeping an eye out for Geth.

We had to hide from several patrols and wait for them to go past, but we managed to make hella good time. Never saw any other people though and the patrols got fewer and fewer as we got closer to the spaceport. The Geth had probably started here and worked their way out.

Somehow, we ended up in another fucking square. Apparently the entire city was built on the things. Some really unimaginative architects around here. The buildings around this one were almost all damaged. One of them had a huge hole in the side, another had basically broken in half, and even the ones that were still standing were covered in plasma burns from where Geth shots had hit them. The top of the building was lying on a pile of wreckage (I think it was a shuttle that'd crashed into the building) that sat on a raised platform. From the broken tables and chairs all over the place, I was pretty sure there was a restaurant under there.

We headed across the square, picking a hella careful way through the wreckage. When we made it to the other side without anyone getting any metal stuck in themselves, I sighed in relief... just as bullets starting flying.

I immediately darted into cover (who knew _that_ was gonna become an instinct?) and looked for the others. Kate and Garrus had dived behind an upturned garbage bin. Garrus had already started firing back at the Geth. Kate was being smart and keeping her head down. I was tempted to do the same, and let the Turian handle shit, but...

Nobody ever said I was smart.

I pulled out my own pistol, and joined him. I wasn't the best shot on the planet, but step-douche had made damn fucking sure I knew what I was doing. I managed to take down two or three of the fuckers before the shit really hit the fan.

I felt the thuds in the ground long before I heard them, and growled as I saw the Colossus coming round the corner. The other Geth all moved to flank it, using its bulk as cover.

It took up almost the entirety of the opposite entrance to the square. When it spotted us, it did something with its legs and locked into position. The Geth to either side put up mass effect fields around its legs. I swore as my bullets bounced off them.

I managed to catch Garrus' attention and yelled at him "What do we fucking do now?"

His yell back got cut off by a burst of gunfire, so I only heard the first half "Stay down when its-!"

Seriously? Stay down when its what? Is he trying to tell me not to help? I know he's a badass or whatever, but I know he can't handle one of these things on his own. We wouldn't have had to do that insane jump if he could.

That's when I realised I wasn't paying attention to the Colossus. I took a quick glance out of the corner of my eye.

Its head glowing blue was the only warning I had before a huge plasma bolt streaked through the air towards me. I felt the heat of it as it went over my head and fizzed into the bottom of a pile of wreckage behind us. It held for a couple of seconds, but then came crashing down as whatever was holding it up got melted into slag by the supercharged particles, sending dust and dirt and crap all over the place.

I tried to flip out of cover and shoot back, but three Geth fired at me when I did, forcing me to duck back behind the broken statue I'd taken cover behind.

I thought for a second, took aim and... fuck it. I emptied my pistol into one of the supports holding up the massive mound of building and wreckage and the entire thing came down on top of the Geth with a hella loud crash.

We both stop shooting, emerging from cover. I resist the urge to fistpump the air and crow about my badassitude. Very valiant of me, I know.

Garrus stared at the pile of rock and crushed Geth for a few seconds before quickly holstering his rifle. "Well." He gives me a begrudgingly respectful nod. "That solves that problem. Come on."

As fucking always with my life, once we solved one problem, we hella quickly ran into another. The Spaceport was on another square, along with the main government buildings for the planet. Saved all the poncy administrator-types having to walk too far when they came to check us out. The Square was filled with Geth, all just sorta milling about, thinking Gethy thoughts about RAM chips and murder.

The dude knelt and calmly took aim, and shot into the crowd of Geth. They immediately scattered, running for whatever cover they could find. They moved hella fast for synthetics. They weren't fast enough.

Garrus took out four more in as many seconds, muttering something my translator didn't pick up when the rest made it to cover. But, Garrus was one patient, scary motherfucker. He just waited for one to pop their head into view, then fired.

A couple of them tried to put up some kinda mass effect barrier, but Garrus just double-tapped the fuckers, blasting through their shields and then blasting through their fucking heads.

He killed every single Geth there in less than five minutes.

Kate and I both blinked at him in shock. Huh. Apparently we solve problems pretty quickly.

He turns back to us with a smug smirk. "You coming? We've still got to find the right dock."

Kate and I share a look, a shrug, a nod, and we follow him across the square and in to the Spaceport.

I'd only been to the spaceport once or twice, but holy shit it was even bigger than I remembered. All the administration and security buildings were in the middle, with a road around the outerwall. The actual docks were built in a ring around the outside of that road. There didn't seem to be any signs for Dock15, so I let Garrus take the lead.

When he didn't do shit, I threw a glare at him. "What are you waiting for, dude? Let's get a fucking move on already!"

He grimaces. "I, uh... I don't exactly know where to go from here. I'd call the commander and ask, but it's radio silence on this one."

I stare at him. "Are you serious?"

"As a damn Batarian. Do you know where..?"

I cut him off. "No idea. Kate?"

She shakes her head.

"Well, shit. Uh..." Come on, Price. Think! Where we gonna find... "There's gotta be a map in the central office, right?"

Garrus tilts his head and gives me a distinctly thankful nod. "You're right. We'll head there first." As we walk in, two giant signs above us direct us left for arrivals, and right for departures. With a shared 'why not?' shrug, we follow the departures sign and look for an office.

* * *

Ten minutes before Garrus' deadline, we managed to find the office, grab the map (it's not like the dudes there were gonna need it anymore) and head straight for dock 15.

We just made it to the door when Garrus suddenly freezes and his face hardens. "Get down!" He yells, just in time for us to avoid a blue bolt that fizzes into the door above our heads.

Garrus fires off a few shots, then grabs Kate (who's just kinda standing there, looking terrified as shit) and sprints with her for cover. I try to stay on his tail, but a bullet scrapes my leg and I trip, hitting the ground face first.

Garrus and Kate both yell and try to run back, but another burst of gunfire forces them back into cover. Every time they try, the Geth shoot at them again. I groan. Shit. My only help is pinned down and, when I try to get up, a burst of pain wrecks through me from my leg. Can't get away, can't get rescued, Ohfuckohfuck, I'm gonna die.

I cover my head and take a deep breath, preparing for my death. The door suddenly flings open with a screeching crack, I feel bullets race over my head, and the Geth falls with a whine and a shitload of sparks.

A hand grabs my shoulder, flips me over, and I looked straight up into the face of the person that saved me, ready to thank the fuck out of them. I owed them one and I... My mouth dropped open.

How. The. Fuck.

"Max?"

Max fucking Caulfield is standing over me, in full fucking Alliance armour and holding a gun like she knows exactly how to use it. A hella wide grin spreads across her hella freckled face as she looks me over. "Hey Chloe. How've you been?"

My mouth opens and closes uselessly as I stare at Max, trying to process _that._ "wuh buh duh uh..." In hella-shocked-Chloe-lish, that meant something like "Holy shit, she's here? She's freaking here?"

I felt like I held it together pretty well as I stared at her, slack-jawed and mumbling random bullshit.

She pulls me to my feet with a snort, looks over at Garrus and nods. "Nice shooting, Vakarian."

"Thanks, Commander." He grins. "I've been practicising. I'd say the same to you, but I think you're getting a little slow. Couple of those Geth got you pretty good. Is the great Commander Shepard losing her touch?"

Max glares. "You wanna say that to my face?"

Garrus shrugs. "I am saying it to your face. Not my fault you're too damn low down to hear it."

They glare at each other for a few seconds, then both break out in huge grins. "So, Shepard, I hear you know these two that I heroically rescued, all on my own?"

She nods, patting some of the dirt off my clothes. "Chloe's kind of... an old friend."

He smirks, and I can feel his judgey gaze on us. "Ah." He says. "Very informative."

Wait. I frown at Max. "Shepard?"

She shrugs and steps back. "Changed it after... after Mindoir."

Oh. Shit. I wince. Didn't know that was where she'd moved to, after she left. I'd heard about the attack on the vids a few years ago. Shit was fucking terrible. Slavers had massacred the entire colony... she'd nearly been... and I'd been so pissed at her for not calling... oh fuck. "I'm sorry, Max."

Her sad expression disappears, going to the polite disinterest face most Alliance officers had. She waves me off nonchalantly. "It's fine."

I blink as I run over what Garrus said in my head a few times until it finally catches up to me. "Wait. Max Shepard is _you_!? Saviour of the Citadel, Council Spectre, Alliance Hero, all that shit from the vids? You did that? For real?"

She grins sheepishly, rubbing nervously at the back of her neck just like she used to do when we were kids. "Um. Surprise!"

I blink again. Wow. I feel kind of like a freeze-pop, hella cold and like someone just grabbed my heart and squeezed me. Is shock something people do in situations like this? Is that a thing? Then again, my eyes were feeling kinda dry. I blink again. Yeah, just my eyes. "Wow." I drawl, trying to keep the incredulity from my voice. "And we always thought we were gonna take up piracy..."

She snorts, and her eyes crinkle in amusement just like they used to. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just give me this one. My childhood friend turned galaxy-famous war-hero just rescued me from robo-raiders after she abandoned me fifteen fucking years ago. In my defence, it's a shitload to process.

Someone calls out from behind us "Piracy, huh? Damn, Alliance. You were way more interesting when you were a kid!"

Max grins. "Yeah, but I didn't have a ship, or all those pretty, pretty guns for you to play with."

I turn to see Jack and... woah. That is a _lot_ of tattoos. Every inch of the girl's body was covered in 'em. When she notices me looking, she leers at me. "Like what you see, village girl?"

I glare. "Village girl? I'm from an Alliance planet, not the fucking Terminus Systems. At least I wear clothes. You look like a fucking stripper." I wasn't even sure what she was wearing. It just looked like straps. Or those Brace things from History class that guys used to wear back on Earth to hold their pants up. At least she was wearing pants to hold up.

She laughs. "I like this one, Shepard. Can we keep her?" She eyes me like a piece of meat. Even I feel a little unclean from that.

Max looks at me. "If she wants. It's not like she can stay here."

Jack laughs again. "Yeah, the housing market here is probably going to _shit_ right now."

Max sighs. "Not what I meant, Jack."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack makes a weird gesture with her hands that I've never seen. From the shit-eating grin on her face though, it's probably insulting.

Max turns back to us, and looks past me to Kate. "Hi. Who are you?"

Kate doesn't respond for a second, staring between everyone in mute shock. I amble over and gently elbow her in the side. "Hey, Kate? You still with us?"

She flinches and looks up suddenly with a "whuh?"

I frown in concern. And I thought it was all a bit much for me... what the hell is Kate thinking right now? "You okay?" I mouth.

After a second, she nods. She takes a breath, takes a second to collect her thoughts, and I can see her mentally put herself back together. "Hello. I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Just asking for your name, miss." Jack scoffs in the background, but nobody pays her any attention. I notice a couple others (a Drell and a Quarian) have filtered in from the sidelines and are just watching the show.

"I'm Kate Marsh. I'm Chloe's roommate." She flinches again when something explodes off in the distance. I manage to keep it off my face.

Max smiles reassuringly. "It's nice to meet you, Kate."

There's another explosion, this time way closer. Way bigger, too. Probably took out at least two squares this time!

"We really need to get the fuck off this planet, Max." I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly before I say what we both know is true. "Pretty sure nobody else is coming."

Max's face hardens as she comes to a decision. It's a weird look, considering all I'd ever known her to do was grin shyly and blush like a tomato. Her face got tighter around the eyes, and her jaw set, like she'd gotten her goal in her sights and locked on. "You're right, we should go." She taps a comm on her ear. "Joker, I need the shuttle."

There's a quick back and forth over the comm, and Jack interjects with a groan and a "Hurry it up, wouldya, I wanna get off this fucking rock already."

I guess Joker could talk through her comm too, 'cause she growls and says "Shut the hell up, flyboy. I can break those creaky bones of yours with a sneeze."

Max holds up a metal-gloved hand. "Now isn't the time for this. Joker, shuttle. Jack, take Thane and secure the perimeter."

"But-"

"Now." Max's voice is hard, uncompromising. This is the way the world is gonna be, and she's gonna make it happen.

Jack growls, but backs down. "Fine. Let's get this shit over with." She storms off and, after a second of hesitation, the Drell (Thane, I guess.) follows.

I smirk at Max. "She's nice. I like her."

Garrus snorts and Max rolls her eyes. "You get used to her... abrasiveness."

"How'd she get involved in your thing anyway? She is _definitely_ not Alliance material."

Max shrugs. "We broke her out of prison after the Warden tried to sell me on the extranet."

I blink at Max's nonchalant tone. "Okay." I look at Garrus, hoping he'll be able to tell me if she's fucking with me or not, 'cause I haven't a clue.

Garrus nods slowly. "Yeah. That happened."

"Huh." I blink again. Okay. Wow. "Catching up is gonna be fucking weird, Max."

She smiles. "You have no idea." Her head tilts, and her smile grows. "Finally." She says, just as the shuttle swoops in over our heads and lands in the dock. Max taps her ear. "Jack, Thane, get back here. The shuttle arrived, and we should go."

The door opens as she approaches, and a human and an asari (both in full armour) hop out. "Hey Skipper. The other ground teams are all back on the ship."

Garrus leans over and mutters. "Ashley. Liara."

I nod gratefully at him. Lucky I'm so good with names. Liara smiles, her hand dropping down to the gun at her hip. "Several dozen ships have left the planet, and are heading for the nearest relay. Joker also found several reports of survivors in fortified installations across the planet. Most of the Geth Warships have been destroyed, and the rest are preparing to leave. It seems this world will survive beyond the Geth."

I grin, feeling a swell of pride in my home planet. Sure, the people 'round here were mostly assholes and fuckwits who'd been shitty to me my entire life, but we'd beaten the fucking Geth!

It's not like there are many planets that can say something like _that._

Max nods. "Good to hear. There's not much we can do now. We're not equipped for relief efforts. Let the Council know and tell them to send help." Jack and Thane reappear, wandering over to the Quarian, Tali, as Garrus had helpfully filled in when he noticed me watching them.

Ashley snorts. "Sure. And I bet they'll just jump to help out a human planet on the edge of the Terminus."

Max smiles. "They will if we ask nicely."

I take one look at her smile and know there'll be nothing nice about it. "Right. Come on then. We've spent too long loitering around." She straightens her back and heads for the shuttle. Her crew shrugs before following along and climbing into the shuttle beside her. We all strap ourselves in and settle in for the trip.

After a second of waiting and a quick conversation between Max and the Pilots, the shuttle launches off into the sky, heading straight for Max's ship. The one that had probably been in the nightmares of nearly every bad guy in the Galaxy.

The Normandy.


	2. Future Imperfect

Chapter II: Future Imperfect

* * *

AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, part two of the introducing-the-actual-story up now! I would've put it together with the first part, but I had two pretty decent ideas planned of where to go with this story and I wasn't sure which one to go with. I flipped a coin, and this one came up heads, so I went with it. Let me know what you think of the whole idea. I figured it'd make something interesting and different that hadn't really been explored before in ME/LiS fic-dom, so I went for it. This is my last bit of planned material for this story too, so I'm all improvised after this. That's gonna be fun. :)

Someone asked about the timelines for this thing, and I figured I'd clarify some shit a lil' bit. Max still moved away from Chloe at 13, same as canon, and the Mindoir attack would've been four years later when Max was 17, which is just before Alliance Military enlistment age of 18. Max is in her late 20s now, maybe 28 or 29, so it's been about 15 years since they last saw each other.

Oh, and I've officially decided where this story falls in canon. (Mild Spoilers for the games for the rest of this paragraph, so if you don't want those then just finish the AN here and get onta readin'. :D) It's between the second and third games, assuming Max handled the whole Bring Down the Sky DLC story better and didn't end up arrested for, like, half a year by the Alliance for murdering a system of Batarians and just got reprimanded for cooperating with Cerberus, which she managed to come back from by being helpful and informative about her time with them. Hence using a slightly cleared up version of the SR-3 layout. I've got that whole bit planned, being part of her backstory and all, so you'll find out exactly how at some point in the story. Probably. Unless I forget. I'm pretty scatterbrained sometimes/most-of-the-time/almost-always and I barely plan anything, so... :D

Oh, and I have a question for y'all. If you had a time machine about the size of an Iphone that could take you 30,000 years into the past or future, where would you go? I've got a time travel story planned, and I'm curious if there's anything in particular y'all would want from it. (For those of you who've seen this already, I'm just gonna be copy-pasting it onto every post I make until I manage to upload this planned story.)

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

 **Phantom99:**

Thank you! Like most of my ideas, I'm not sure where it came from, but it seemed too good an idea to miss out on. Now you've seen Chapter 2, did I manage to keep it up?

 **Ayyyy:**

Sign up complete. Still getting my bearings with the Mass Effect universe and this storyline, so it's not fully to-theme yet, but I hope you like this one!

 **MaxNeverMaxine:**

Thanks Eminem. :)

Heh. Yeah, writing Chloe trying to get to know everyone was the most fun part of this. Mostly because I picked a slightly bizarre storyline to go for, so trying to get the world to feel right as well as fit with the new universe idea was a little difficult and banter is more fun to write than that, but still. Not much Jack as of yet, but once she starts to get used to the new crewmates, I'll expect she's gonna interact a lot more. That's going to be fun...

Indeed. It's always lovely to chat about it with people from other countries, too. Godawful public transport is one of the things that bind all members of this species together; no matter where you live, it's probably going to be late. :D

* * *

Everyone starts moving almost the second the shuttle touches down, hopping out through the side-doors and heading for wherever they were meant to be on the ship with appropriately military precision.

Max stops mid-swingout and looks back at me and Kate. "Come on. I need to go talk to Joker."

It's not like we had anything better to do, and even I knew better than to wander about on a freaking Spectre's Warship. So, I shrug, say "Sure." and we follow her through the cargo bay and onto an elevator.

Max calls out into thin fucking air as we step in. "EDI? Any news on the survivors?"

I barely have time to wonder who the hell she's talking to before I get my answer. A tiny blue graphic sort-of-head appears on a little shelf on one wall of the elevator. "Nothing new to report, Commander." It flashes with each word, then vanishes.

Cute.

Wait.

Who..?

I frown at the now-disappeared graphic. "That wasn't the pilot. What was..?" I blink. Synthesised tone, kind of a weird inflection on certain words...

Oh. Wow.

My jaw drops and I turn and stare at Max, who simply looks nonchalantly back. "Yes. She's an Artificial Intelligence."

"How..?"

The little graphic head appears again. "Ms Price, I was developed by Cerberus from an emergent training VI over a period of several years. The Commander freed me when she took this ship from Cerberus hands."

"You know my name?" I... am really not sure how I feel about that. Not like that's a new feeling or anything. And... I am not sure if that's ironic or not. Meh. Whatever.

"Of course. And that of Ms Marsh. I monitor all communications between ground teams in order to assess mission status."

"Huh. Okay." So, they really trust this... thing, then?

"If that is all?"

I look over at Max, who just shrugs. So, I look back over to EDI's avatar graphic and, after a second, mimic her shrug. "Sure."

"Very well. Logging you out, Ms Price."

I turn back to Max. "Woah."

She smirks. "Yep. It's, uh... been kind of a weird few years. EDI has definitely been some of the more useful weird. She's a valued member of the crew."

 _She_? I blink at her for a second, before my face breaks out in a smirk of my own. "No fucking kidding." We stand in silence for the rest of the elevator ride, and things start to feel sort of normal. Well, normal for, y'know, the kind of day we've been having.

The elevator stops and the door slides open, and things get hella weird again.

The first thing I notice is that warships, even smallish ones like the Normandy, are _crowded as balls_. There's a couple dozen people in the area around us, and I can see another dozen more up closer to what I guess is the cockpit? Or whatever the space-squids call the drivers seat in this thing. There is definitely some strange-as-fuck overly specific name for it.

I tune back in to catch the very end of what Max was saying. "-in the bridge."

Huh. Guess not.

We head over to the bridge, and Max starts talking about technical specs and shit that I have only a vague understanding of right now. Like, no shuttle I ever repaired had a tertiary induction manifold. What the fuck even is a tertiary induction manifold? And what does it induct?

We're greeted the second we walk in by a... wry sounding voice. "Brought some more strays home, huh Commander?"

Max nods, grinning down at the pilot. "You know me, Joker. Can't resist sentients in distress."

Huh. So, this is the pilot, huh? I mean, I could probably have guessed he was, he's literally sat in the cockpit, sorry, 'bridge' (damnit), so he's hardly gonna be the cook, is he? Do they even have a cook here? Either way, this 'Joker' dude doesn't look like much.

Joker chuckles. "We're gonna have to build an extension to the living quarters if you keep this up. You think Cerberus would pitch in for that?"

Max shrugs. "Probably not. I mean, we did kind of give the base we promised them to the Alliance instead, and stole their ship and employees, so the Illusive Man is maybe not our biggest fan right now."

He sighs. "You're probably right. Ah well. At least the Alliance let us keep the seats. I'd probably defect back again if they tried to take my baby." He strokes the leather-looking arms of his seat. Then, he finally looks up at me. "So, who are you people, anyway? You knew Shepard when she was small, right? Well," he amends. "Smaller, anyway."

Max fixes Joker with an... unimpressed look. "Not that she's short or anything. Perfectly normal height for a Commanding Officer, Ma'am." He amends again, glancing back at Max with a slightly terrified smirk.

I grin. "I'm Chloe. That's Kate" I thumb over my shoulder at my diminutive roommate, and she gives a sheepish little wave. "I knew Max when she was a kid, yeah. We practically grew up together."

"That is awesome. I will pay you every credit I have if you'll tell me all her embarrassing childhood stories."

Max shrugs. "There are no embarrassing childhood stories."

He gives her a skeptical look. "Come on, Commander. Have you met you? Of course there's embarrassing childhood stories." He looks back to me. "Please tell me there's embarrassing childhood stories?"

"Joker," Max interrupts, before I can say anything, but I manage to nod and mouth a raincheck at him, getting a hella delighted grin in return. "We need to get back to the Citadel. After what happened the last time we tried to report a Geth Attack, I think we need to be there in person. Maybe we can call in a favour or two before we take these two to see them."

Them..? "Wait. You wanna take _us_ to see the fucking Council?"

Max nods. "Of course. You're witnesses, Chloe. Last time, they ignored us until we found concrete proof. With you two, and the parts we scavenged, we should have a convincing enough argument to get them to help."

Joker scoffs. "Even with that, I bet they'll still find someway to not be helpful. It's a busy job they've got, being not helpful for a whole galaxy, y'know."

Max rolls her eyes. "I know, Joker. But we still have to try."

"Alright," Joker agrees, in a tone that says it's everything but "Want me to chart a course to the Nebula then?"

Max nods. "Get it done, Joker."

"Aye, Commander."

They chatter about something operational for a few minutes, leaving me and Kate both confused as fuck, so I take the chance to check on her again. "Hey Kate?"

She smiles at me, seeming hella more at ease now we weren't being shot at. "Hello, Chloe. Are you okay? You sounded a little nervous when they mentioned the Council."

I blink. "Uh, yeah dude. Aren't you? They're, like, the literal government of the entire galaxy, and they're gonna listen to us?"

She shrugs. "Max seems to think they will. And she is a Spectre, so they should at least hear us out for her, right?"

I snort, definitely showing my derision for _that_ idea. "I dunno, dude. It's just hella weird. I was sat at home two hours ago wondering what to watch on the vid, now I'm gonna be talking to the Council? I mean, shit. Talk about escalating quickly."

Kate's smile disappears, and her expression turns intense, in that way only Kate at her most fuckin' earnest can be. "I know you're nervous, but we have to try, Chloe. We can't let this happen to anyone else."

She pauses, and the intensity disappears. Now she looks like she's about to try walking butt-naked through a minefield. "Aren't you... concerned? About what happened to your Mom and step-dad?"

Mine fucking stepped on.

"I don't give a fuck about those assholes. She chose him. That bridge is fucking burned."

"I know, Chloe, but this is di-"

"Alright! Job done." Max claps her hand down on Kate's shoulder. "I can give you the nickel tour, if you want?"

Kate eyes me nervously, and Max suddenly picks up on the tension, blinking nervously at us. Good to know that hasn't changed. She might be able to see an enemy coming a mile away, but she's still awkward as fuck with people.

"Are you two... okay? I can take you to Chakwas if you're not feeling well. The tour can wait until later." She frowns over at me, then Kate, then back to me again. "Really. Up until we get to the Citadel, there's not really much for me to do around here. The XO can handle the logistics of the jump."

I shrug. "We're good. So how 'bout that tour?"

Max's frown hangs around for a long-ass minute as she keeps staring suspiciously at us, then it just disappears. "Right. Come on then." She takes us back into the first room, the one by the elevator, and gestures widely to it. "This is the CIC. It's where information from the engine room, sensors, navigation, and so on are collected together and processed during combat."

"So, a Command Centre, right?" I think for a second. "And then they send all that stuff to you, or Joker up on the bridge."

She nods. "Exactly. The Normandy was built by a joint Turian-Human group, so it has elements of both people's styles built into it. Normally, on smaller Alliance ships like this, the CIC would be integrated in with the bridge," She gestures back over her shoulder with a thumb. "but we went for more of a Turian design." She speaks clearly and confidently, which is just fuckin' bizarre to hear coming from Max, but I guess she's had to defend her ship before. There are a lot of anti-Turian humans around. Idiots.

She waves over to the big-ass holographic galaxy thing in the middle of the room. There's a little ramp, slightly elevated above the rest of the room, that leads up to it on one side. "Plus, they station me back there now, rather than on the bridge. Turians seem to love anything that reminds them they're in a hierarchy." She grins. "It does make me feel tall though."

I snort, and drawl "Now that's just wrong."

She laughs, and nods. "Yep. Wouldn't want me to get too big a head." Even Kate smiles a little at that.

Max moves on, waving at another door to the left of the elevator. "Over there is the War-Room. I... can't really let you go in there. Regulations are pretty clear on civilians in the sensitive areas."

Kate tilts her head. "That's okay, Max. We understand, there are rules here."

I shrug. "Yeah, totally. That's hella cool."

Max nods to herself, smiling in relief. "That's good. I'm sorry, but after the whole Cerberus thing, I'm a little leerier about breaking regs."

I frown. "Yeah, you mentioned you stole the ship from those guys. Who the hell are Cerberus, anyway?"

She frowns, even deeper than me. It was kinda cute. Made the freckles on her nose all scrunched up. "You don't know them? I thought every Alliance world was aware of them."

Me and Kate share a commiserating grin. "Yeah... Greenleaf was kinda... out of the way. We didn't get much news and shit."

Her face clears, and she nods in acknowledgement. "Oh, right. Well, they're a human-centric terrorist group. They try to advance the cause of humanity by any means necessary. Usually involving murder, blackmail, illegal experimentation, and whatever else they can get their hands on."

Wow. "They sound like assholes."

She laughs "They are. But they make really nice ships."

"And you... worked for them for a while?"

Max holds up a finger. "With them. Worked with them. Important distinction." She quirks her mouth in a self-deprecating grin, and gives a little shrug. "But yes, I did. I worked with them for a while, then returned to the Alliance when I couldn't do it any more."

I lean back, just letting all that drift over me. Max really had been through a lot, and one of those things had been working with literal asshole racist terrorists. "Damn."

She grins. "Damn is right. Shall we head downstairs? I should be okay to show you the crew deck."

Kate and I shrug. "Sure."

So, we get back in the elevator (but no fucking AI this time), and head down a deck in silence. It's surprisingly uncomfortable. Usually I'm okay with people being quiet, but in that tiny-ass elevator, it was hella bad. At least it didn't take long. When the elevator stops and the doors slide open we step out to find... oh.

To find a list of the dead.

There weren't many names, but... yeah. Seeing it was definitely a sobering moment.

I pull myself away before I can get too fuckin' maudlin, and take a look at the crew deck.

There were four corridors in front of us. Two to the left, two to the right. One on each side went straight out, and one on each side went somewhere behind us. Max immediately starts talking, very obviously not looking at the wall of the dead. "Over there is our Life Support bay, again, you're not allowed in there. Over there is crew quarters, you can go in there but I wouldn't recommend it right now. CPO Illyushin is off-shift right now and he gets cranky if you wake him up."

I nod. "Noted. No waking the cranky soldier." Kate flashes a small smile at my hella sarcastic tone. Max chuckles, turning to walk down one of the straight corridors. The door at the end slides open when she walks up to it, revealing a hella nicely turned out bar and rec room. I blink in more than a tiny bit of shock, 'cause we're on a military ship and this really is a very fucking nice room. They've even got a damn poker table.

Max's chuckle turns into a full laugh when she sees my open-jawed reaction. "Nice, isn't it? Going through a tonne of crap with next to no support from the brass has its advantages. Namely, them feeling guilty enough to give us one of these."

Kate smiles politely and, while she hides it pretty well, I've known her long enough to know that she doesn't really give a shit about how nice the bar is. If they had a library on this boat, that'd impress her, but a bar? Not so much.

We skim over the mess hall. I mean, it's a kitchen. There's a couple tables and some cupboards with a few places to cook food. I might be a backwater planet girl, but I've seen a few kitchens in my few short years and this one is nothing special. Now what you really wanna see is a Hanar kitchen. The Jellies love a wok. And turns out tentacles are really good for flipping pancakes. Fuck, I miss the Great Enkindled Bake-off. It's just not been the same since those Elcor assholes bought it.

Max takes us straight through, nodding in response to a couple of saluting soldiers as she heads straight for a door on the other side of the space. We follow her through to find Garrus, standing over a cannon fixture and muttering to himself. "Targeting vector is about 3 picometres off ideal, maybe I could recalibrate the local matrix to-"

"Garrus!" I yell out, hoping to scare the shit out of him. No such fucking luck.

He turns slowly around, and his mandibles chatter into what I'm pretty sure was a Turian grin. Or possibly fear. Either way, totally appropriate. "Hi. You don't have to shout, you know. I'm right here."

I shrug, grinning over at him. "You were getting really into it with the big gun. Didn't know if we'd be able to pull you away."

"What can I say? I like big guns." He drawls.

"And you cannot lie?"

He tilts his head in confusion. "Uh. No? Actually, I've been told I'm pretty good at it."

I roll my eyes over at Kate, who giggles a little at the poor, clueless Turian. If there's one thing our species is good at, it's confusing the shit out of all the others with idioms and pop culture references.

Gotta get your kicks somehow, right?

He shakes his head, "I'm not gonna ask. The Commander showing you two around?"

We nod. "Yeah. Getting the 'Civilians-only' tour of the Normandy."

Kate smiles. "It's been... educational, thus far."

Garrus nods proudly. "Yeah, this baby is top of the line. The best tech Cerberus, the Hierarchy, the Alliance, and Max's... uh... diverse network of contacts could come up with, all jammed on top of the most powerful drive core in Citadel Space."

I nod appreciatively, trying to think of something to say to that. Thankfully, Kate rescues me with a "It certainly is impressive."

Max nods, flashing Garrus a fond smile. "The Normandy is the best girl there is. She's gotten us through a lot of trouble."

After a second, the Turian leans in. "So, any embarrassing childhood stories you can share?"

Max groans. "We should go. Now."

Garrus grins. "Worried about any story in particular, Shepard?"

Oh shit, yeah. She's Shepard now. That's gonna take some time to get used to.

As she realises what a horrible mistake she's made putting two of us on the same ship, I look curiously around Garrus (tried to look over his shoulder first, but the fucker is hella tall) to see what he was working on. "What were you doing before we came in, anyway?"

He shrugs. "Just trying to get a little more kick out of this baby."

Max speaks up, sounding hella grateful for the topic change. "Garrus is kind of a gun nut. He spends almost all of his downtime in here trying to make improvements on the ships weapons."

Garrus stands a little taller, evidently proud of his work. "I've managed to get at least 6% more accuracy out of the old girl since she was installed."

"6%? Woooowww..."

He nods, apparently missing the sarcasm. "I know, it's impressive, right? The engineers integrated some of my modifications into the next model designs."

Okay, that actually kind of was impressive. "Nice, dude."

"Thank you." He gives an arch little nod of his head.

Joker's voice comes in over the intercom. "Approaching the relay now, Commander."

Max taps her comm. "Acknowledged, Joker. Get us there."

"Aye, Commander."

She turns back to us. "Come on. We've still got another few rooms on the tour."

* * *

The ship shudders as we drop out of the relay. Nobody else bats an eyelid though, so I keep my mouth shut, and my eyes on the window.

Not that we could see anything outside except for purplish clouds.

The Serpent Nebula was one of the things everyone knew about the Citadel. It was a dense, sprawling field of gas and dust that was pretty much the best defence any place could have. It was opaque as shit, so your windows were useless, and it fucked up your navigation systems, so anyone trying to attack the Citadel had to know exactly where to go and what course to set in formation, or they'd end up crashing into each other. But Joker guides the ship through the clouds, fingers flying effortlessly over the keys as he brought us in like it was nothing.

"On our approach now, Commander." Joker's voice breaks through my weird, introspective haze, and I focus back on the haze out the window, keeping a vague eye on Joker's piloting instruments to let me know when we're getting close. As the numbers get close to zero, I focus my whole attention on the window in anticipation.

We're about to get our first view of the Citadel and I gotta admit, I was kinda excited. It was somewhere I never thought I'd get to see, and I was really curious what the place actually looked like. The vids never get it right and...

The Citadel was fucking huge.

Max chuckles next to me. "It is, isn't it? Glad it's not just me that thinks that."

Oh. I said that out loud.

"You did."

Damnit.

Joker taps a key, and tilts his head forward to speak into his console. "Citadel Control, this is SSV Normandy. Requesting permission to land."

A formal sounding voice echoes through the bridge. "Stand by for Clearance, Normandy. Clearance granted, you may begin your approach. Transferring you to an Alliance operator."

Joker taps a few more keys, swerving the Normandy towards the inner part of one of the Citadel arms. "Roger, Alliance Tower. Normandy out." As we close in, I see that we're actually heading for the inner ring, where the arms meet the Citadel tower. Joker slows the ship, and turns us so we're facing towards a bank of docking ports. The line of mass effect fields keeping the docking bays separate from vacuum flicker around, creating a strange-looking shimmering effect as we get closer.

"Normandy, this is Alliance Tower. Please proceed to Docking Port 22."

Again, nobody jumps at that? Jeez. Something is hella wrong with these people's survival instincts. You jump at sudden sounds, especially on a starship!

Joker nods, muttering to himself as he taps in the heading for port 22. I can see the ship slowing as the port starts flying towards us at a slower rate, but I'd never notice if I wasn't looking out the window. Smoothest ride I ever had.

The window flickers as we glide through the docking port field, slowing to a full stop just as a large arm extends from somewhere to the side of us to clamp onto one wing of the ship. We feel the thunk as it attaches to us and makes the ship shake.

Joker switches off the engine, and taps whatever button makes the comms work one last time. "Alliance Tower, Normandy is docked."

"Acknowledged. Welcome to the Citadel, Normandy. Alliance Tower, out."

So. We're on the Citadel. Time to face the fucking music. We're gonna be talking to the fucking Council pretty soon. What the hell are we gonna say to them?

"You want to bring any of us with you, Commander?" A familiar gravelly tone says, and we turn to see the Turian grinning (or at least, I'm pretty sure it's a grin. Still kinda hard to tell, what with the mandibles) at us from the bridge doorway.

Max nods. "You, and probably Liara. You can wait thirty though. I've got to take these two through Bailey's office first."

Garrus snorts. "Good luck with that. So glad there's no paperwork in the Spectres, it was a nightmare to deal with in C-Sec."

"Like I'd trust you to do paperwork, Garrus. You'd use it for target practice instead of actually doing it."

He shrugs, unbothered. "That's probably true. I'll let you know when we're done. Be ready to move."

Garrus salutes. "Aye, Commander."

Max nods goodbye to Joker and Garrus, then walks past him out of the bridge, waving us over to follow. "You two need to come with us. I've a... friend in C-Sec, he'll be able to make it so the paperwork required to get you on the station takes thirty minutes instead of thirty days." She smirks. "Bailey's a good one. Tell him the truth, if he asks for it, okay?"

We both nod. I throw up a sloppy salute. "Aye, Commander."

She rolls her eyes. "Don't join the military any time soon. You'd be shot for the salute alone."

"Unless my disorderly conduct gets me first."

We grin, feeling just a little more of that old familiarity. It was hella good to have something from then, y'know?

We head to a door just off the bridge, and it slides open to reveal an empty room, with both walls lined with little scanner things. "What's this place?"

"Airlock. The scanners look for contaminants, unregistered firearms, that sort of thing." At Kate's slightly deer-in-the-headlights look, she adds a quick "Don't worry, it's harmless."

Kate doesn't look that reassured, but we head in anyway, and she doesn't relax until the scan finishes. As it does, a loud dinging sound echoes through the airlock, and the door begins to slide open as EDI announces that "The Commander is ashore. XO has the deck."

We head out of the ship and onto a smallish dock, one only a little bigger that the ones back on Greenleaf. Clearly Spectres weren't that high on the priority parking. Max doesn't wait around for us to finish gawking, striding straight for an elevator at one end of the bay. We scurry after her without a word, joining her in the elevator. She taps a key and it whirrs into motion.

After a few moments of silence, Max starts to speak again. "After we're through with Bailey, I think we'll head for the executor's office. Pallin should have a few leads we can bring up to the Council."

"Leads?"

Max nods. "Yes. He's surprisingly in-sync with the rumour mill for such a... prissy bureaucrat."

"Cool. Anywhere else you gotta go?"

Max raises an eyebrow at my hella heavily expressed enthusiasm for errands. I shrug. "The longer it takes us to get to the Council, the more time I have to get scared shitless."

Max nods in understanding, her face spreading in a slow smile. "Don't worry, Chloe. It's going to be fine." She says, leading us into the waiting arms of the Fuzz.

* * *

It really wasn't fine.

C-Sec guys _never stopped talking._ Like, jeez. We must've answered a hundred questions in that thirty minutes about everything from our blood type to our favourite stores on the Citadel. Max took that one, since we'd never been here before.

We'd finished with Bailey and let Liara and Garrus know we were heading out onto the Presidium, then we'd taken an elevator up there.

If the Citadel looked huge from the outside, it was colossal from the inside. And hella fucking terrifying.

The place was freaky as shit. If you kept your eyes down or forward, it was kinda fine. But looking up was an easy way to get a fear of heights. All five arms stretched up over us like massive towers, and we could see the nebula around us. The weird, sideways perspective of it made it look like we could fall down past the arms and out into space at any second.

I had no idea how people _lived_ here. I was struggling not to grab onto the nearest tree or pillar or elcor or whatever and hold on for my fucking life.

Max, like always, apparently, didn't seem that bothered. Neither did Kate, weirdly. She was just staring up with an awed expression on her face. "By the Enkindlers..."

She was so weird.

Max just stared incomprehendingly at my panicked face. "Chloe? Are you okay?"

I point up to the sky. "Dude. Look at that shit. How are any of you okay?"

She looks up. She looks back to me. "What?"

"It looks like we're going to fall into the sky, Max. Into the fucking sky!"

She blinks up at the Citadel arms, tilting her head like she's trying to see a duck instead of a dog. Or a dog instead of a duck. "Huh. So it does. That's pretty cool."

"How are you so calm about that shit?"

She shrugs. "I guess you get used to it. Plus, I've fallen through vacuum before." Her face breaks out into a nostalgic grin. "Ah, Basic. Good times." She shakes her head, and turns to walk off deeper into the Presidium. "You coming?"

I blink at her for a second, wondering when the measured military Max I thought I was starting to know had gone totally crazy. Then I remembered when I knew her before and realised she always kinda was.

And somehow, that reassured me. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

* * *

"No." Executor Pallin somehow filled that single word with all the derision the Turian people had for mine.

"No?" Max crosses her arms, glaring at the still-sitting Turian. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"Is my translator malfunctioning? I believe the meaning of the word is quite clear."

"You're the head of C-Sec, Pallin. If anyone's heard anything about Geth activity, you have."

He nods. "That is true. And I'm telling you, there has been no activity in Council Space since the incident with Sovereign."

"Bullshit."

I turn my head, trying to work out who said that.

Oh.

That was me.

What the fuck am I doing?

Pallin finally shows some actual emotion, doing the chittering irritation thing with his mandibles that Garrus seemed to do all the time while helping us, and leans forward over his desk. "What did you say?" His voice was low and dangerous, full of warning that I had best choose my next words hella damned carefully or he'd have the power to have me shot or imprisoned for life or something.

I didn't doubt he would.

"Um. I just meant that, that's why we're here. There was a-"

Max smoothly interrupts like a bullet to the face. "a rumour that something was moving, but I guess our source burned us."

After a few quiet, quiet seconds, Pallin relaxes back into his seat. Still straight-backed and formal as a butler with a stick up his ass, but not on the warpath anymore. "Apparently so. Control your... associates better in future, Spectre. Your kind might not appreciate respect and manners, but you will use them when interacting with my agency."

Max nods hurriedly. "Of course, Executor. My apologies for any insult tendered."

He inclines his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Hmph. Maybe there is some hope for you after all. Now, could you please get out of my office? I've much work that needs doing."

Max bids him farewell and our party of five gets the hell out of dodge. The minute the door is closed and we're out of earshot, Max whirls on me. "What the hell were you thinking, Chloe? Haven't you heard of fucking diplomacy?"

I scoff. "That asshole wasn't gonna give you anything. Newsflash, he hates you, dude."

"Of course he hates me! I represent everything he despises! But if we'd done things his way, he might've bent a little later on!" She scowls, running a hand through her air to clear her anger. I grin slightly at the familiar mannerism. "This isn't funny, Chloe. Humanity is still the idiot kid brother to these people, and we've got to do things right to change that."

I shake my head. "I'm not laughing at you, dude. Just..." I trail off, suddenly realising how fucking stupid this sounds.

Max doesn't let up. "Just _what,_ Chloe?"

I sigh. "The hair thing. You did the hair thing you always used to it, I just... kinda..." I sigh again. "Yeah."

She blinks at me, going silent, and I know I fucking screwed up. That's what they say about military people, right? They always go quiet before they explode at you.

"You..."

Oh fuck.

"You..."

I'm totally dead.

"You remember that?"

Huh. That did not go how I thought it was gonna go. Max is looking at me with an even more indecipherable expression than Garrus, who I'm pretty sure is enjoying this. Asshole.

I shrug. "Yeah." It was only like fifteen years ago, right?

She stares at me for a few seconds more, then shakes her head just as I realise that wasn't actually a proper answer. "You really haven't changed, have you?" Her voice sounds wistful, kinda sad, and I realise that she's not actually asking me.

I answer anyway. "Here and there. Still kind of an asshole, though."

Garrus chuckles, and she shoots him a look. "I don't know what you're laughing about, Garrus. You're just as much of an asshole as she is."

"Oh, I know. I'm really going to enjoy this."

Garrus and I both grin as Max grumbles something about how "there's damned two of them now."

Even Liara chuckles a little. "Yes, it seems you're going to have your hands full with these two, Shepard."

Max groans. "Oh crap."

* * *

"Shepard, we've told you, there is no such thing as 'Reapers'."

Max shakes her head. "A debate for another time, Councillor. Today, we're simply here to talk about the Geth."

All three Councillors tilt their heads curiously at that. Didn't Max tell them what the meeting was about before we turned up? Shit... "The Geth, commander?"

Max nods. "There was another attack, on another Alliance world."

The Asari Councillor leans forward. "Another attack? But we've heard nothing."

Max shrugs, and I can see her jaw tighten as she tries desperately not to yell at these people. "And you heard nothing about Eden Prime until we delivered the reports."

The Salarian Councillor raises a hand. "The Special Tasks Group-"

Max interrupts. "Councillors, regardless of who knows, this is true. This happened. You can send out for verification, if my being proven to be truthful last time isn't enough for you to give me this one." She clicks her fingers, like she's just remembering something, and waves a hand at me and Kate. "Oh, and I brought some more reliable witnesses this time, since you dismissed an 'obviously traumatised' dockworker last time."

They grumble to each other for a few seconds, obviously pissed off at Max's slightly more... hostile tone.

The Asari Councillor (I have really gotta learn these people's names) leans forward again. "Commander Shepard, should we, uh, 'give you this one', what is it that you want from us?"

Max stands taller, more officious, and her hands go behind her back. "I'd like for you to commit some forces to my command. I'm going to try stop this from happening again."

The Turian tilts his head. "Are you even trained for commanding a fleet?"

Max nods. "All Alliance Officers are trained in tactics and command overview, for redundancies in battle."

The Turian seems taken aback by that. "A wise precaution on your race's part, Commander. We-"

A sudden explosion rocks the room, a few people scream, but the Councillors and Max's people both keep their composure despite the shakes.

There's a moment of silence when the shaking stops, but it ends hella quickly when another explosion happens.

The Turian Councillor taps a button on the screen in front of him, growling demandingly into it "This is Councillor Sparatus." Shit, that's his name! "What the hell was that?"

"Councillor, the Citadel is under attack." A voice reports, calm, but with an edge of slight wariness to it. Like someone trying to edge their way past a big dog.

Sparatus definitely wasn't expecting that. "What?"

"An unknown enemy has appeared from the clouds, and is currently destroying- they're firing on... by the spirits... The Destiny Ascension is destroyed. They're tearing the fleet apart!" The voice is in full blown panic mode now, blabbering about how everything is going to shit.

Max straightens her back, calling out "Councillors, I believe the Normandy can help out here. Permission to join the fight?"

They nod. Enthusiastically. "Permission granted, Commander. Good luck."

* * *

I nearly collapse in the airlock, breathing as deep as I can to try get any freaking oxygen to my lungs. Max doesn't seem bothered by the fact we basically just sprinted from the frigging Council tower with our only stops being the disappointingly short elevator rides.

Even Garrus was breathing harder than Max. Jeez. Liara, on the other hand, seems to barely have noticed that we ran anywhere. I wonder vaguely if that's an Asari thing, or just her.

The second the scan finishes, Max dashes through to the bridge. "Joker! Get us out there, now!"

"Aye, Commander." Joker's all business. "Gonna go save the Council's asses from the fire again?" Well, half business. Pretty sure that's the best you can hope for from a guy named 'Joker'.

He rushes the Alliance Tower guys through the docking (undocking? Is that the word?) procedure and we're speeding out of the bay in less than four minutes. By that point, Kate and I have crawled out of the airlock and we're slumped in a couple of the unused chairs on the bridge.

Joker flies the ship back the same route we got in, angling at the very last second to head towards the hella rapidly worsening battle going on above the station. "Orders, Commander?"

Max taps her earpiece. "Liara, see if you can ID whoever these people attacking us are. All weapons, fire at will when targets reach engagement envelopes. We're about to get a target rich environment for you, and we need to eliminate all opposition as soon as possible."

There's a woop from back in the CIC as the gunners get excited to shoot some shit. Guess they don't get that chance much, on a ship like this. "The Destiny Ascension is down, and the rest of the fleet is getting pummelled. Let's see how much of it we can save."

She puts a hand on Joker's shoulder. "Take us in."

Joker nods, and the ship lurches into a twist that makes the inertial dampeners scream as he brings us down into the battle from the top. The second he does, we start getting targeted and the bridge lights up with bright red warnings. Joker starts muttering course corrections into his console as the ship jolts from side to side to evade incoming fire.

Max leaves the bridge, heading back to the CIC, and Kate and I manage to drag ourselves up to follow her. She rolls into the bridge like a thunderstorm, barking out orders as she goes. Screens start to flash as we fire at whoever these people are. I'm not sure if I'm excited or terrified, but either way, this is so freaking cool.

Even Kate seems to be fascinated by all the stuff going on around us, blinking owlishly at all the consoles.

Max heads up to her spot above the holographic galaxy, and taps a key. The map zooms in to show a more detailed rendering of the local area. Probably built from sensors or something. Pretty sure she mentioned that stuff coming here.

Max's comm buzzes and Liara's voice comes through. "Commander, I can't identify the enemy vessels. They're a design I've never seen before."

Joker seems entirely shocked at that. "They're so mysterious even _she_ can't identify them? Damn..." His fingers don't stop dancing over the controls though, not even a stutter. I'm getting more and more impressed with this dude.

People around the room start calling out details about the battle, ship placements, weapons being fired and ammo reloading, hits missed and hits struck. They never mention any damage taken though. Apparently the Normandy is really, really hard to hit.

Eventually, the battle starts to turn as Max takes control of the surviving Citadel forces, and pulls them together for a counterattack. She orders them into something she called 'Gamma Five', and starts listing off coordinates and headings for each ship.

Surprisingly, the other ships don't protest her taking command, bowing almost instantly to her control. Guess Shepard is enough of a name among every species now to get whatever done.

We watch out the window as the ships lumber along, lashing out with whatever weapons they have at the enemy ships. There's green, and grey, and black, and missiles flying past in every direction, and the CIC people are mainly just listing off hits made now. The battle was definitely turning in our favour.

Max never takes her eyes off the holo-map, watching the little icons of our little flotilla approach the enemy, a weird island of quiet in the sea of reports and shouting.

Suddenly, she taps a key. "All ships, move to three theta twelve, and fire all remaining ordinance."

The screens around us light up as crewmen start wooping. "They're breaking formation! Commander, the enemy is in full retreat."

Max grins. "All ships, break formation and clean 'em up. Disable if you can, destroy otherwise. Let's teach these assholes how we do it on the Citadel."

A chorus of cheers from the other ships echoes through the comms until Max switches it off with a click. "Joker, take us in to the disabled ship," she marks a floating wreck on the map. "and tell Garrus and Grunt to meet me at the airlock. We're going to go kick in their doors, see how they like it."

She starts to walk off, but some woman standing near the big map thing suddenly speaks up. "Commander, there's a message coming in for you from... uh... someone. It's marked high priority urgent though."

Max stops, and shrugs simply. "Put it up."

The woman nods and taps a single key.

The lights all shut off at once, and every screen in the entire CIC (and probably the rest of the ship, I guess, from the confused shouting I can hear echoing off the bulkheads) displays ten letters in light blue text.

 _NGGYUNGLYD_

Max yells out "What the hell is this?"

Joker answers almost immediately, sounding completely confused "No idea, Commander, but it's playing hell with our systems, I think we're gonna-"

The lights flicker back on, then off again, and the ship is wracked with explosions as systems start to overload. I blink mutely as soldiers get knocked about around us, wondering numbly what the fuck just happened. How could everything go bad so fucking quickly?

I feel someone's arms wrap around me, and Kate's face appears in my vision. "Chloe? Chloe! Are you okay, did you hit your head?"

The holo-map explodes, sending sparks and shards and soldiers flying in every direction. I watch as a trooper flies towards us in slow motion, landing in a bloody slump at our feet.

Max swears. "Joker! Joker! Switch to-"

And everything went dark...

* * *

Everything hurt.

Everything was... quiet?

Oh fuck.

Everything was terrible.

Max had... and the ship had... and Kate...

I try to roll over.

Bad idea.

I scream in pain as my body stretches through the shards of metal embedded in my side. Oh, right. Yeah. The holo-map exploded. I hold myself as still as possible, trying to stop the pain, but I think I pulled something because it still fucking _hurt._

Fuck it. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, and took a look around, whimpering the whole time at the pain that shot through my entire body.

The CIC had definitely seen better days.

Almost every console on the walls was broken, screens shattered and keyboards fizzling. The holo-map was gone, with just a fizzing clump of wires and widgets where it used to be.

And there were bodies everywhere.

Oh, shit... I swallow a surge of vomit, desperately trying to control the nausea at seeing so many people just... gone.

I didn't recognise anyone near me, but I could barely see through the haze of pain, so I tried not to panic about it. It's not like I could fucking do anything about it anyway, right? Rach was the one who did all the medical shit.

Pushing through the pain, I finally register... something... on my legs. Something heavy. I didn't wanna see what the hell was causing that kinda pain, but I figured I had to, right?

So, I looked down, and saw a body lying slumped over my legs, with a familiar dirty-blonde scruff of hair. I grinned. Kate! She's okay! I leaned forward, swallowing another scream, and kinda just shoved at her. "Kate?"

She didn't move.

I shove harder, feeling almost frantic.

Nonononononononononono. This isn't fucking happening!

"Kate!?"

The moment when she twitches and mumbles some random bullshit was the happiest I'd felt in a long fucking time. I lean back a little in relief, sighing hella deeply. Okay, so someone survived this shit. That's good.

I gently move her, gritting my teeth again the entire time, trying to get her off my legs. I scream again as blood starts flowing back into my legs, and the numbness vanishes in another burst of pain.

I breath deep for a few minutes, trying to block it out again.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

Nose.

Mouth.

In.

Out.

In.

"Chloe!" Kate lurches up, blinking at me in concern. Fucking hell, Kate. Always thinking about others first. Gotta deal with your own shit for a second, I think, as she buckles a little, whimpering.

I let her be for a few seconds, as she follows the same breathing thing. "You okay?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"Me either."

"Yeah."

I lean back and yell out into the room as loud as I can manage. "Hello? Anyone there?"

A blue light shimmers, and something crackles somewhere in the room. "Ms P-ice. I -m he-e. You a-pear to hav- br-k-n ribs, in add-t-n to the fragme-tation damage."

"Shit. What was your name? Ellie?"

"My na- is EDI."

That was it. "Is anyone else alive?"

The voice crackles again, and suddenly starts coming through more clearly. "There are several crewmembers alive and conscious on the lower decks. Unfortunately, you and Ms. Marsh are the only individuals currently conscious on the command deck."

"Shit." I finally manage to pull myself up onto my feet. "Where are they?"

"Scanning." A few uncomfortably long seconds pass. "Jeff's identification chip shows he is still in the pilot's seat. Shepard is around eight point six feet forward and six point three feet to your left. Crewmen Hadley, Illyushin, and Gregson, are around nine and a half feet to your right."

Shit. Only five people on this deck? There had to have been two dozen people before...

before...

What the hell happened? Last thing I remember, everything... something happened, and then... explosions? Shit, I can't remember... Fuck it. More important things. Gotta check on Max and the others.

I stumble over to my left, trying to keep my eyes open long enough to spot Max. I find her unconscious under a bent metal strut-support. It wasn't pinning her, luckily, just sort of bent over her. I fall to my knees next to her, totally on purpose and not even slightly because I was getting lightheaded, and shake her a little, saying her name at her.

Again, happy times when she starts to stir. "Ugh... Chloe? What the hell happened?"

I snort. "I have no fucking clue. Your ship is kinda fucked though."

She blinks. "What, really? Oh crap. This is gonna cost the Alliance to fix." She shuffles out from under the strut, stands up, and cracks her neck. "Okay. EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Survivors?" Max says, sounding so fucking hopeful.

"My identification systems are malfunctioning on the lower levels, so I am afraid I cannot give specifics from the crewmen caught below, but there are currently four crew and two civilians alive in the CIC. And I believe Jeff is about to regain consciousness in the bridge."

Max freezes. She closes her eyes, and takes a breath. When she opens them, she's back in charge. "Okay. Chloe, Kate, check on the crew in here. I'm going to wake Joker, see if we can't get a few status reports. Once they're up, let them know to get whatever systems working that they can."

I nod, finding myself saying "Aye, Commander" without really thinking about it, and heading off to follow orders. Damn. Maybe I should've joined up. I'd probably look hella hot in one of those uniforms.

What?

Yeah, I know it's shitty to think while I'm in a room full of dead people wearing that uniform, but I gotta think about something else or I'm gonna vomit or freak or _something,_ and Max doesn't need that shit right now. So, I help Kate up, and dust her off, then go to check on the three dudes (one of which turns out to be a chick).

They're all alive and, like Max, in pretty decent shape for the shit they went through. I help them up, let them know what's happening, and what Max wants them to do. Credit to the Alliance, they get on with it pretty damn fast.

Makes me feel kinda useless, just standing off to the side, while these three start poking at consoles and digging into wall panels, so I take Kate and head up to the bridge to offer my services. "Hey, Max?"

I walk in to find Max just... okay, there's no other word for it. She's _fussing_ over Joker. It's like she's his Mom or something. He bristles at it, trying to bat her hands away with a muttered "I'm fine, damnit!" as Max pokes at his legs.

His legs?

"What's wrong?"

Joker sighs with irritation, before rattling off an explanation like he's done it a million times before (I was pretty sure he had.). "I've got Vrolik's syndrome. Brittle bone disease. The bones in my legs never developed properly. They're basically hollow. Too much force, and they shatter." He chuckles darkly. "Put the Normandy in my hands, and I'll make her dance. Myself, not so much. Don't ask me to any balls unless you like the sound of shattering bones."

I blink. "Oh. Are you okay?"

He scowls. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just someone," he looks pointedly at Max "won't take that for a damned answer!"

Max scowls back. "Well, excuse me for being worried about my crew."

They hold that scowl-off for a few seconds, before Joker breaks and leans back with a sigh. "Sorry, Commander. But I'm fine." His swivels his chair back to the console, and starts tapping buttons, grinning when the console partially lights up. "Awesome! There's still some auxiliary power. EDI?" he calls out. "You doin' okay for power?"

"I am fine, Jeff, though I am currently very limited in system functionality. All external sensors are down, and I have no control over weapons or navigation. However, I am more concerned for those below decks right now."

"Why?"

"Thought I am not able to track specific individuals, I am able to measure ambient heat, and I believe from the measurements taken that there are currently several fires on both the crew and engineering decks."

Max curses. "Alright, EDI, you and Joker work with Hadley, Illyushin, and Gregson to get whatever systems functional that you can. Chloe and I are going below decks." She looks apologetically at Kate. "You're barely standing now, Kate, I need you to stay here where it's safe."

Kate nods shakily. "It's okay. I wouldn't be much use, anyway."

I walk over to her and give her a gentle nudge, wincing when she squeaks in pain. "Don't say that, Kate. You're plenty useful. Just not when you can't use both arms."

Kate chuckles. "Thanks, Chloe. Now, go save some soldiers."

I nod. "Right. Come on, Max. We're gonna climb down the elevator, right?"

She looks at me, just a little impressed. "Not bad. I didn't think you'd pick up on that."

"Yeah, well. Not just a pretty face." I shrug. "Also, you don't have stairs. It's like, the only way down."

Max tilts her head in acknowledgement, but doesn't say anything, instead just heading over to the elevator doors. She forces them open with a biotic field, wincing as the doors slam open and she stumbles. "Crap. Should not have done that." She takes a few breaths, and stands a little straighter. "Okay, let's do this."

* * *

Apart from the fires, the lower decks were in way better shape that the top one. The walls were fine, and the ceilings hadn't caved in, so...

Yeah.

Max picks her way through the fires, seeming pretty unbothered by them. I stay back, considering I don't have flame-proof armour on. "Maaax?"

She turns around curiously, noticing the fire. "Oh. One second." She disappears into the blaze, returning a couple seconds later with a small extinguisher. "If we get to life support, we can activate the fire suppression systems."

I nod. "Right, okay."

Max leads the way, stopping every so often so I could extinguish whatever fire was in front of me. Luckily, the Life Support room was empty when we got in there, and Max immediately hurried over to a console on the wall, starting flicking switches.

I was standing in the doorway, keeping watch, when a shadow appeared out of the smoke. The Drell dude, from back on Greenleaf. "Hello."

I frown a little at his completely casual tone. Why is everyone on this ship completely unfazed by fucking danger? "Uh. Hey dude."

"Is the Commander inside?"

Max shouts through. "Thane! Have you seen anyone else?"

The Drell stalks past me and into the Life Support room. "Unfortunately not. I regained consciousness only moments ago."

Max shrugs at Thane, "Sorry about this." and flicks a switch.

Thane bows, just as the sprinklers flick on, spraying a cloud of moist air everywhere. "It is necessary, Commander."

"Still." Max puts a hand on his shoulder. "Let me know if things get difficult."

He nods. "Thank you for your concern, but I will be fine. Let us go find the others."

Without waiting a beat, they head out into the corridor, leaving me to trail behind them through the corridors, calling out for whoever might not be dead. Over the next thirty minutes or so, we start finding people. Garrus stumbles out of a smokey-as-fuck gun room, Liara appears out of fucking nowhere, some chick named 'Kasumi' just sort of shimmers into being (seriously, where does Max find these people), a bad-ass armoured Asari everyone cheerfully calls Samara kicks out a door and storms out of one of the observation rooms (I totally wanted her to teach me how to do that), and we manage to wake up an older looking woman that Max called Chakwas.

By the time we head back up to the command deck from engineering, there's a decent crowd of people milling about the destroyed CIC. Apparently most of the dead were those folks stationed up here. Max seems relieved with the low casualties downstairs, and sets some people on getting everyone seen to or doing something useful before heading back up to the bridge with Liara.

I take a sec to check on Kate, who's chatting with a couple of the injured crewmen, one I recognise. "Hey Kate. And Ashley, right?"

She nods. "That's me."

"You two okay?"

They both shrug in unison. "We're fine. Just talking Tennyson."

"Who?"

"Poetry, Chloe." Kate smiles, very familiar with my complete lack of high culture.

"Oh." I nod, and quickly flee with a "I gotta check on Max" before shit can get too classy.

I figure I might as well do what I say I was gonna do so I head up to the bridge after Max. The three of them are urgently chattering over the console. Joker points to a bunch of things, and Max swears. "Fuck. I thought we ran them off."

Joker sighs. "Guess not, Commander. EDI? Can we shoot back yet?"

The little blue chess-piece appears again. "I am afraid not, Jeff. Weapons are still non-operational. I have, however, managed to reactivate some external sensors."

"Damnit. Okay. Orders, Commander?"

Max is about to open her mouth when Liara suddenly steps forward, leaning over and tapping on the console. "They aren't the same ships!"

I walk in and lean back against the bulkhead as I watch 'em. Max frowns. "They aren't?"

"No!" Liara points, excitedly. "See those markings? They're Quarian."

Max frowns. "Quarian? What the hell?"

Joker bats Liara away from the console with a "Hands off the console, Doc." His hands start flying over the keys as he talks "Scanning them and... huh. That's the Migrant Fleet. Not a lot of it, though. It's maybe half of it, at most."

"The Migrant Fleet? Here?" Max seems hella shocked. I'm not sure why. I think I've vaguely heard about the Fleet, but I dunno why they're so freaked about it being here.

"Apparently, Commander. Want me to hail them?"

She nods. "Do it. Let's find out why they're here."

"Aye."

The console beeps for a second, until an angry sounding voice says "This is the Quarian Ship Idara. Identify yourself, stranger."

Max taps a key. "This is the SSV Normandy, an Alliance vessel. What are you doing in these parts?"

There's a few beats of silence before the same voice speaks again, disbelieving "The Normandy? A pointless claim on your part, stranger, claiming to be a vessel destroyed a century ago."

What?

A century ago?

"Repeat your last, Idara. There was a battle here and some of our systems were damaged, we do not copy."

Another few beats pass. "A battle? When did this battle happen, Normandy?"

"A few minutes ago, maybe an hour? We're not sure how long we were down. Can you get a message to Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, or Han'Gerrel vas Neema? Tell them Shepard vas Normandy wants to call in a favour."

A full three minutes pass, all of us in the bridge sitting with baited fucking breath until the voice speaks again "Normandy. Hold position. We're coming aboard."

* * *

"This is a bad idea."

Max looks back over her shoulder at the grumpy tattoo'ed woman. "Your objections have been noted, Jack. Just be ready if they try anything."

Tali gasps. "Try anything? Shepard, they're my people! They won't hurt us, unless we endanger the fleet."

"Are any of you feeling sanguine about this situation at all?" Thane inquires.

Max nods. "Absolutely."

A beat.

"What's 'sanguine' mean?" Max tilts her head curiously.

"Hopeful. It also means bloody."

Max grins. "Well, that pretty much covers my feelings about this situation, yes."

The airlock door beeps, marking the finished airlock cycle, and the door slides open to reveal five suited Quarians. They stand there for a few seconds until one takes the lead and walks out of the airlock, stopping a few steps from Max. "Hello. I'm Captain Jan'Iyaris vas Idenna. This is my second, Leftenant Yar'Tasha vas Idenna, and her security team."

The rearmost Quarian pushes through, "There's no need for all the posturing, Captain, let me through." A slightly hunched Quarian wanders out in front, nodding to Max. "Admiral Teev'Kellar vas Vasquez. It's an honour to meet you."

Max nods. "Commander Max Shepard vas Normandy." She waves to each of us. "Jack, Thane Krios, Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy, Lieutenant Moreau, and Chloe Price." She focuses back on the Admiral. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't recognise you. I thought I'd met all the admirals, during my last visit."

The Quarian nods. "I am not new, but you did meet the entire Admiralty Board at the time you visited. Uh... do you have anywhere we might do this, other than the airlock?"

Max shakes her head. "Not really. Much of our ship is still damaged, and we're using the CIC as a med centre."

Admiral Teev'whatever shares a look with the Captain. "Very well then. I won't beat around the foliage, as your people say." He takes a breath. "It's been a little over a hundred years since the Citadel was attacked, and the Normandy was believed lost."

Jack scoffs at the same time I do. "Bullshit."

"I'm afraid it's true, Commander. But there's more."

More? Shit. Max stays silent, listening to this bullshit.

The Quarian Admiral continues "Your battle was the first of a far greater war, which has been going on for the last century."

I blink. I mean, I can't see his face, but the guy seems sincere...

"A war?"

The Admiral nods. "Indeed. Between the Council Races and their allies, and your people and theirs."

Max frowns suspiciously. "And, assuming what you say is true, what side are you on?"

"We are on no-one's side, because nobody was ever on ours."

Max smiles. "Fair argument." Everyone else stays quiet, probably just contemplating whether this obvious bullshit could be true. "So, why weren't we found earlier? We're hardly hidden here."

The Second Officer steps forward to answer that question. "Relay access to this system was interfered with somehow after your battle. From the fragments of reports we've been able to piece together since we arrived, we believe the interference was due to some kind of programming glitch. Nobody other than us has been here since the Citadel fell."

Thane stands a little straighter, tilting his head. "So, how is it that your people came to be here?"

The Second Officer woman shakes her head. "By accident, mostly. We came under attack by pirates, and had to flee through a relay. Some error must've brought us here."

Max shakes her head. "What you're talking about... it, it can't happen. Nobody can interfere with a relay like that."

The Quarian chuckles. "Nobody that we know of. Unfortunately, the Council Races have found some new ally. Several large, unidentified vessels have been sighted with their forces. We presume these new allies of theirs are able to modify the programming somehow."

Max sighs, muttering "damnit." under her breath. She draws herself up to attention. "Well then. What now?"

Admiral I-Forget'His-Name activates an omnitool and brings up a holographic image of a ship. Probably one of the Quarian vessels. "We can provide you with basic shipyard facilities. We'd like to offer you some assistance with repairs and medical aid and, in exchange, you join us in investigating the state of the Citadel."

Max nods. "Agreed. We'll need one of you to stay on board to coordinate docking with Joker. Our navigation instruments were damaged in the battle, and we could use the help."

The Quarians nod "That seems fair." and start talking amongst themselves for a few minutes. Gives me time to wonder what the fuck Max was talking about. EDI said navigation was fine and... oh.

She wants a hostage.

After a debate, the Quarians turn to Max and the Admiral nods. "Very well. I will stay. The Captain and his Second are needed back on their vessel. I will, however," Of course... "be staying with Yar'Tasha's guards."

Max shrugs. "That's fair." She thumbs over towards the bridge. "Joker is over there. Apologies in advance for... him."

Joker yells. "Hey! That's... actually that's fair."

The Admiral chuckles and hobbles over, trailed a few steps behind by the two armed Quarians. After exchanging a worried look, the other two nod to Max and say their goodbyes before heading back into the airlock. Max turns to Thane, saying in a low voice "Keep an eye on them."

Thane bows and prowls away without a word. I resist the urge to whistle. Dude was graceful as fuck. I turn to Max. "So, what now?"

Max takes a breath. "Now, we see to our dead, and we repair our ship. And try to work out what the fuck is going on."

I nod. "Yeah. Definitely that last one."

* * *

"Ugh. Even watching them work is exhausting." I mutter, leaning against the heavily reinforced window on the Quarian dock as we watched suited Quarians skitter over the ship, welding and patching and repairing all over the place.

Max chuckles from a bench somewhere behind me, never looking up from her book (I'd been interrupting her reading a lot.). "Maybe. But they're the best at ship-repair in the galaxy. Did you know that some of these ships are four hundred years old?"

I blink, turning around to stare at her in sheer fucking disbelief. "Seriously?"

She nods, still not looking up. "Yep. They've kept them running since they first fled Rannoch."

"Damn." We really could've used a Quarian in the maintenance crew back on Greenleaf. They would've made that job a whole lot easier for the six months I had it. Huh. I wonder what Quarian tattoo parlours would look like. I make a mental note to ask that admiral dude if Quarians ever did, or do, tattoos. If not, pretty sure I got a breakout industry on my hands.

I pull away from the window and wander across the room, flopping down onto the floor next to the glowing badass Asari, who's just been sitting quietly meditating for at least three freaking hours now so she's got to be in hella desperate need of a break already, right?

"Samaaaraaa?"

The glow fades, and her eyes flicker open. "Yes, Chloe?"

"Tell me a story?" I make my voice sound as annoying, desperate six year-old at bedtime as I can. And like the last ten times I did it, it doesn't faze her.

So freaking cool.

She just tilts her head, and eyes me placidly. "What would you like me to tell you a story about?"

I pull up a datapad and start flicking through my book list. "How about that time in issue 137 when you kicked like, a thousand pirate's asses?"

"You've been reading that 'news source' again..."

I shrug. "We've been stuck in here for like five days. It's not like I've got anything else to do, and they won't let us and our 'dirty germs' or whatever out, so... yeah. Sue me, I've been reading." Plus, Kate'd been spending a shitload of time with that Ashley chick, and Max was busy dealing with the Quarians, so I'd gotten to get to know the rest of the crew. A couple of them were really cool, Totally crazy, but hella cool. I still wondered where the fuck Max found these people.

She sighs. "It was closer to five hundred mercenaries, but very well, I will tell the story. I was finishing a mission on Dekuuna when I received the call from an old colleague; I hadn't seen my fellow justicar in several hundred years, so the message came as something of a surprise. She invoked the Rite of Assistance, requesting my aid with defending a target against the Blue Suns. So, of course, I bought passage on the first vessel I could..."

* * *

"...thus, she and I were forced to execute the foundry's operators and owners for their crimes, along with the mercenaries they had cheated."

I let out an impressed breath. "Dude... That's fucking amazing. You've had a pretty cool life, Samara."

She gives a gracious little nod of her head. "Thank you. It certainly has been... eventful."

I grown. "Unlike my life. Remind me why we're stuck in here again?"

Max chirps up "Because we need the Quarians to help us repair the Normandy, and if we get our germs all over their ship we could kill someone."

"Oh, yeah. That."

I roll my head back so I can look upside down at Tali, watching as the little Quarian engineer fiddles with something on her omnitool. "Hey Tali?"

She jumps a little, then the weird glowy orbs of her eyes look up at me through her visor. "Y-yes, Chloe?"

"How much longer d'ya think it's gonna take?"

"I don't really know. It shouldn't be much longer, though. From what I can tell, they've finished with the internal systems and are just working on the hull."

I groan. "Thank fuck for that."

Samara smiles. "Thank fuck indeed."

I roll my head back forward again to look at her. "Shit, Samara... You sound like a soccer mom trying to be cool with the kids."

She nods. "Thank you. I am indeed good with children."

Max chuckles.

I glare at her.

She chuckles harder.

* * *

"Your people have done an excellent job."

And they really had. The ship was fucked last time I saw it. Now, while it was kinda... patchwork in places, it was fully functional. The consoles around the walls of the CIC had been replaced, and we'd got a new holo-map, though it wasn't as fancy as the old fixture was. Even the bent-out-of-shape floor-to-ceiling struts had been fixed. I didn't get to see below decks, but apparently most of the fire damage had been fixed as well, apart from the cosmetic shit. We still had some ugly fucking burn marks on the walls.

Admiral Teev nods gratefully. "Thank you, Commander." The week of quarantine, observation, and interaction had pretty much eliminated any disbelief between us and the Quarians. Best of buds now. They'd even introduced us to their new friends. Apparently the Council Races had ditched their whole 'no opening new relays' policy from the Rachni War days and had just been opening new routes all over the fucking place.

The Quarians had run into a few of those species in the aftermath of Council attacks and had decided to help out. One of them were a bunch of... seriously religious little... rat-things called the Aeslin. From a distance, they looked almost exactly like mice, until they opened their mouths. The Aeslin were even more prone to religious mania than the Hanar, and these guys apparently worshipped the 'Suited Saviours'. Plus, we found out pretty quickly that the little dudes couldn't lie, and had a perfect memory. Anything they heard they repeated without modification, and repeated it really fucking loudly. So... yeah. That'd been a fun revelation.

The other group they'd befriended were the Johrlac, These guys were the complete opposite of the Aeslin. They were hella private, apparently feathered humanoids, that lived in suits like the Quarians due to their internal structure being unable to survive in anything above sub-zero temperatures. They were also apparently hella amazing engineers, being almost obsessive about math (AN1), and a couple of them had been brought in to work on the internal systems. We barely got to meet one before they were taken on board.

"Now, about the other half of our deal..?"

Teev nods and, like he's been expecting the question the whole time, sends a file from his omnitool to Max's. She opens it, hmming over whatever it was. "Indeed. We've been scanning the Citadel over the last week, and found no sign of life at all."

Max seems taken aback, looking up from her reading. "None? At all? Was the Citadel evacuated after the battle?"

Teev shakes his head. "There wasn't time, or opportunity. As far as we can tell, the interference with the relay began too soon after for any ships to escape."

"Damn." She looks back down at the file, eyes going distant. "Wonder what happened to them."

"As do we, Commander." Teev stands just a little straighter, a little more official. "We'd like you to accompany two of our Marine Landing Craft to the station, and command the exploratory mission to find out."

Max nods, standing straighter herself. "I'd be honoured to, Admiral. We'll find out what happened."

He nods. "Good, good. I'll let you get to it, then." He straightens up even further, offers a creaky salute, then leaves.

Max turns to the rest of us assembled in the CIC. "Well then. You heard the man. We're heading to the Citadel."

There's no wooping like before, more... a quiet sense of satisfaction. I get it, really. It might've been a hundred years for everyone else, but these people just lost a bunch of friends on the ship, and pretty much everyone off it. Now, they wanna kick something in the nads for revenge.

Max gives the CIC crew a little nod, then heads back to the bridge.

I stick around, watching the crewmen work. It's kinda fascinating. Makes me wonder what it'd've been like if I'd done what Max did and joined the Alliance Military. I would've finally gotten off my backwater planet.

Greenleaf...

I'd been trying not think about that shit for the whole of the last week. Like, Rach... the last conversation I had with her... with the girl I... I was a fucking bitch to her. And now she'd been dead for, like, a hundred years.

Shit...

* * *

"Come on, Max! I wouldn't be any trouble or anything!" I was about ten seconds away from dropping to my knees and begging her to let me on the damn away mission.

"No, Chloe." Max's voice was full of the commanding tone she used on her people when she wanted shit to get done. In full armour and fully armed, it made for a pretty badass image. Unfortunately for her, I'd known her since she was born, and I'd seen her fall over her own feet half the fucking time, so I wasn't intimidated. Also, I'm a contrary bitch who likes to fuck over authority.

Maybe joining the Alliance Military wouldn't have gone so well for me, huh...

"I could be useful! I could-"

"get shot, when whoever is hiding the station ambushes us." Max finishes.

I shake my head. "Dude, ask Garrus, I can shoot, and I know how to keep my head down."

She sighs. "That doesn't mean you're trained, or you know how to handle an ambush situation tactically."

"But there's nobody on-"

Max sighs. "We don't know that for sure. The signal could be being jammed, or there could be geth on board. The Keepers are everywhere on the Citadel, and they don't register on sensors at all. We have no idea what's in there, so you're not going."

"But-!"

"No, Chloe."

I slump a bit, feeling both pissed off and kinda defeated. She was not going to budge. After a second, she looks at me, and sighs. "I can give you access to the suit cameras. That's the best I'm going to do, Chloe."

I nod. If that's the best I'm gonna get, I'll fucking take it. "Thanks, Max."

"Sure." She sighs. "I should go. We're landing in a few minutes. Tell Liara to let you access the cameras. She'll help you get what you want to see." After that obvious dismissal, she turns and leaves for the airlock. The thing cycles quickly before the telltale beep sounds that marks a complete cycle.

I stand there for a few seconds, fuming at Max for being such a fucking stubborn... bitch! I take a few breaths, trying to calm my shit. Liara was too damn perceptive, if I went down there like this she'd notice and ask about it, all concerned and shit.

After a second, I make a decision.

I rush down to the locker me and Kate had been given to grab my pistol, a bit of omnigel I'd managed to sneak out of sickbay, and head back up to the airlock.

I step in, waiting for the cycle to finish, then head out into the Citadel after Max.

* * *

AN1 - I will never understand where this came from. Like, the full word is 'Mathematics', as in more than one. Makes far more sense to shorten it to 'maths' than just 'math'. Americans.


	3. The Solitary Reaper

Chapter III: The Solitary Reaper

* * *

AN:  
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Apologies for the lack of upload these past couple weeks. I've been the kind of unwell that makes doing anything more than staring dumbly at a television screen utterly unappealing. I'm well again now though, so here's an update!

I watched the reboot of Lost in Space, and the original old one, while I was sick and I've subsequently been in quite a sci-fi mood, hence why this one is being updated finally after a year. :) Gods, I've been doing this for a lot longer than it feels like. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

 **phantom99:  
** Thank you! Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

The ship door closes behind me with a hiss and I skitter along the gangway to the dock. I very, very carefully do not look over my shoulder, knowing exactly what was behind me. Space. The Final Frontier. The Fatal Final Frontier.

I don't think I'll ever get used to having death literally a few meters from me at all times, but hey. Stranger things have happened. Like, y'know. Time travel.

Anyway.

I wander down the dock towards the C-Sec elevator. Max, the Quarians, and whoever went with her had already gone down it, luckily. It would kinda suck if I got caught before I even got off the dock. I might hate this place, but I wanna see what's gonna happen. Not that I could really miss it. This station has way too many fucking windows.

I can see stars reflected in the glass of the elevator, mocking me with their threats of death being in hella close proximity. I shudder, and tap the call button a few more times. Come on! Please.

A minute passes, then three, and I'm still stuck on this fucking dock.

Ugh. Have these elevators gotten slower?

I slam my hand down on the call button, and it finally flashes.

I groan in relief. These elevators have definitely gotten slower. My mind starts rewiring them in my head, reminding me of all the little tricks and shortcuts I picked up during my time on the maintenance crew back on Greenleaf. Anything to distract myself from the crushing realisation of crushing vacuum.

How do people live like this? With inevitable, unavoidable, and certain death just metres away from them at all times. I've barely been in space for, oh, a little over a hundred years, and I'm still freaked out by it. Kinda freaked out by that, too. And the fact that nobody else seems to be. Not sure which is more freak-out-about-able, in all fucking honesty. And now I'm alone, and not distracted by people or gunfire or anything, I can't stop thinking about it all. It's just going round and round in my head. Whys and hows and whats and (appropriately) whens. And Rachel.

Fucking. Rachel.

It's been a hundred years, she's absolutely and totally gone, but still feel like-

The elevator dings. Oh! I step on.

It slides down easily, and I find my agonisingly slow journey is suddenly accompanied by... well. Someone, somewhere in the galaxy probably calls it music... Musical taste aside, it somehow makes the scenes I see after the metallic elevator tube turns to glass even creepier.

After my grandad died, we had to sell his home. He was pretty rich, did something I forget with mining, so it was a big place, with lots of stuff. I'd grown up running about, weaving in and out of it all, even making fucking obstacle courses out of it. But after he was gone, and all his stuff was sold or divvied out to whatever relative he liked the most, it was left empty. Just a house, all the stuff that people collect to make it a home gone. No evidence there was ever anybody there. Just a shell. Just... empty.

The Citadel was the biggest station in galactic history, home to literally unknown billions of people, and it was completely, and utterly, empty. Floor after floor, square after square (seriously, with the fucking squares! why does every species live with these things?), vast open spaces completely barren of any life at all. The biggest station in the galaxy and there wasn't a living person in sight. There was something vast and timeless about it. A sense of ancient history on a scale so much bigger than us, something that had seen so much that it wouldn't even notice if we disappeared tomorrow, much less care.

Can you even imagine the sheer fucking size of it? The depth of that cold emptiness that just went on and on and on? Maybe then you'll understand why space scares the shit out of me.

Fuck.

The end of the elevator trip doesn't come fast enough, and I skitter out as quick as I can, repressing a shudder. I move so quickly, in fact, that I don't notice the spider-like corpse in the middle of the room. My foot thwacks into it, making a hella nauseatingly wet sound as I trip over it and go sprawling.

I roll over and groan in disgust. What the hell is that thing? It looks like a weird green spider, or one of those insect things that kept eating the crops back on Greenleaf. What did the supervisor call them? Aph-somethings. Aphids? Could be. Either way, it looked like a weird, kinda upright green insect, and it was very, very dead. I got a good look at it, right up in my face; it's inky black eyes were just staring at me, and I get a faint memory of a doll I'd had as a kid. Or maybe it was Max's. Whoever owned it, it was the creepiest little thing I'd ever fucking seen. Had buttons sewed onto the eyes, but hella tight, so the rest of the head was sort of stretched over the stuffing, just being pulled into them. The doll got older, more beat-up, hella beat-up, in fact, but those buttons never lost their shine.

We blew that doll up with an improvised explosive as soon as we could get the materials.

I finally manage to drag my eyes away from the shiny black of the creature's ones, looking down to the bit of the thing's flesh where my foot had hit it. It had squished inward like old fruit, and I stared in blank horror as the thing's entire body just sort of... pulped. One second it was a body, then next it was a pile of goop.

I just... what? What the fuck was that thing? Did I kill it? Was it already dead and I just trigged some kind suicide-dead-mans-switch thing? Oh fuck.

I stagger to my feet and over to a trash can, throwing up my shitty ship's rations into it. (Actually, the Quarian food was pretty fucking good, but I was too freaked out to admit that.). When I was, uh, done, I pulled myself to my feet, wiped my mouth, and took as slow and deep a breath I could manage.

It actually helped, surprisingly.

C-Sec looked to have seen better days, when I actually looked at it. There were a few more of those insect-things around, but the most telling evidence of it being abandoned was the hella thick layer of dust and grime on literally everything. It was nearly a centimeter thick in some spots.

I poke around a little, trying to find out where Max and the others had gone. It didn't take long. The dust was on the floor as well, so I just followed the smudges. First, they'd crossed to one of the air-taxi rank things by the sides of the room. I tapped the call key, like I was sure they had, nodding to myself when the screen flashed with an error. No cars available.

Like I said, that wasn't surprising. They would've left there, if there'd been a car, so... (I can deduct stuff too, y'know.). I kept on with the tracking, actually kind of enjoying it when I concentrated on blocking out the dead bodies dotted around the room.

So, now I knew they had to have left by the elevators, it was just a matter of working out which one. I hella definitely didnt want to get the wrong one and end up lost in the bowels of the station. So, I had to be sure.

Which meant more tracking and guesswork! Woop. I kept looking through the dust, but from the taxi-rank they went off in every fucking direction. I tried following the ones that lead to elevators, but every one I tried got me a locked door. Fucking hell. Why would they lock a door on an _abandoned_ station? Max really was paranoid.

I tried to hack one of them but with my hella limited tech I was stuck. None of the elevators would open, but I did find that most of the footprints going to the other elevators circled back to the central one up to the Presidium. Made sense, now that I thought about it. Why would they bother with the residential wards when they could go straight to the centre of government and business?

Unfortunately though, I couldn't follow 'em. I really hoped that wasn't why they'd locked it. If Max was keeping precautions against me, it didn't bode well for this little trip. But, fuck it. I wasn't one to give up easily. Except at sports. Fuck that shit.

I tried running through what I had, seeing if anything might come in handy for slicing a door, but de nada. I was out of ideas. I flopped back against one wall with an irritated sigh, running a hand through my hair as I tried to calm my shit. It didn't work. "Damnitalltofuckandback."

Maybe Max was right. Maybe I'm not cut out for this fieldwork stuff. Maybe I should've stayed back on the ship. I'm not a soldier. I'm just a fucking useless dumbass from some shitty little town on a shitty little planet. My mind goes over the familiar self-hating bullshit that always happens when I confront reality and get my ass kicked for longer than I wanna think about. Eventually, though, I stand up, and I give up.

Until I remember where I was.

C-Sec! The place where they put all the hackers and criminals and the expensive Citadel-Provided tech! My face splits into a grin as I think of all the fancy shit they probably have in here. Something there would have to get me through the door, right?

Hella fucking right!

Only problem was, I'd only been here once, for less than five minutes, like, a hundred years ago, so I had no idea where any of that shit would actually be. Couldn't be too hard to find though, right?

Eventually, by sheer genius (trial and error), I find the Requisitions Room. The entire back wall was lined with lockers, and a long desk sat between me and them. There was another dead insect thing in here, but I was too busy gleefully glaring at the locked lockers to pay much attention to it.

Omnigel didn't seem to work, which was weird because that worked on every damn lock I'd ever seen on Greenleaf (that's a hella lot of locks, by the way), so I started poking around the room looking for clues. Maybe a passcode or a keycard or something? C-Sec could've locked their stuff up with bagels for all I know, so I tried to keep an open mind and experimented with whatever I could find. Worked in video games, right?

It, uh... didn't seem to be working here, though. I just ended up with a lot of smeared locker keypads. Eventually though, the hella fucking obvious option of checking the computer on the desk finally occurred to me and I quickly managed to load it up. Turns out, this guy (or gal) wrote his password on the bottom of his computer.

Idiot.

I type it in and grin as the OS boots up, rolling my eyes at the vaguely patriotic splash screen that rambled some crap about C-Sec being awesome and serving the people or something, and I start looking for a locker command or password or something.

After a half hour of poking through sub-sub-subfolders, I manage to find something. It was the temporary log of a message sent to the Requisitions Guy on his first day, kind of a how-to/orientation booklet. Apparently his name was Tarqus, which meant he was probably a Turian, and the lockers only opened when a legitimate payment and order was sent through. I flicked through it and got a pretty good idea of how to submit one.

Only problem: I had literally no money. Even a hundred years ago, I was flat broke. So, if I wanted some of the fancy tech, I'd have to find some credits from somewhere. Unfortunately, in my upturning of this entire office, I hadn't found any credit chits or useful account information, so I'd have to improvise.

Turns out, improvisation meant spamming an authentication server to retrieve the passwords for an Alliance account that they'd used to buy something (the description of the purchase just had a bunch of numbers, so I literally had no fucking clue what) a hundred years ago and hoping some-fucking-how that the account still worked.

In-fucking-credibly, it did.

The account had a crapload of credits in it still, but I didn't need much. Just a few thousand to open the lockers I needed. Gotta type in the destination account, fill in the passwords, aaaaaand... I hit submit.

The lockers slide open.

Booyah!

I scurry over and start rifling through the... uh... rifles. Wow. That is a lot of guns. I pick a couple of them out and immediately lurch as my knees just fucking buckle. Holy shit, guns are hella fucking heavy.

"I'll, uh... I'll stick with my pistol." I think, sending another roll of guns across the floor as I empty out yet another locker. Still no useful tech. Why the hell don't they label this stuff? I growl, slamming a fist into one of the locker doors in frustration.

Ow.

I let my head drift down and rest against the cold metal, gritting my teeth against the pain of punching a metal locker. Why do I do this shit to myself? Like, it's a steel locker, what the fuck was I expecting?

When I finally get my hand to stop hurting and my crap pulled together, I stand back up and start searching again. I end up going through almost the entire wall of the office, and I'm now starting to get kinda worried that somebody is gonna come looking for me or I'm gonna have to go back because I can't get through a fucking door.

Come on, there's gotta be something in here I can use! I start going as fast as I can, just tossing guns and armour and whatever other random crap is in the lockers down on the ground. Nope. Nope. Egg Whisk? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope...

Oooh.

In the last locker on the left, on the second row from the bottom, I finally find something. A brand new, high-tech as hell, all-singing, all-dancing, hella freaking cool Omnitool!

Okay, so it was brand new a hundred years ago, but the doors were innumerable thousands of years old so I think I win this round.

I quickly strap it to my wrist, over the accompanying pair of haptic gloves, and boot it up. Another annoying splash-screen and a bunch of sign-in pages that keep wanting me to download DirectX later, I have a fully working Omnitool!

I dash out of the room, fuck the mess, and back up the stairs into the main hub of C-Sec and over to the elevator. A few button taps and a quick hack-program later, and I'm in!

I'm in! Chloe one, door zero.

Actually, it beat me before so it's probably one-one, but it's a door so it's not like it can complain to the ref.

I tap the call button and the elevator door slides open. I step in, key-in the Presidium and we rocket upwards. At the same speed as the Docking Bay elevator, so... Slow. A. F.

Fuck.

* * *

The doors slide open about ten minutes later (I'd left the ship forty minutes ago. Shit, that door took so fucking long to open.) and I step out onto the shiny, nausea-inducing Presidium walkway. Carefully not looking up, I take a look at the area around me, trying to find any sign of where Max and Co had gone.

There were no signs at all. Unlike the C-Sec headquarters, the Presidium hadn't a damn speck of dust on the ground. I guess whoever kept the Citadel clean didn't like C-Sec much.

Either way, I had no idea where Max was and I was terri-aware of the dangers of looking up. I'm a badass. I am! Okay, fine. I was totally fucking terrified of looking up. Space was up there. Watching. Waiting.

So, I kept my eyes and nose to the ground, and started walking. I was way too freaked out last time Max brought me here, so I was struggling to remember much of the route we took. I walked across a bridge, grinning down at the still-clear lake below me.

The place was pretty, I'd give it that. The emptiness that I'd seen going down the elevators had less of an effect on me now I was up close and personal with it. Those wide open spaces looked smaller, now I was down here.

Still had no idea where I was going. I had to get to the tower, right? I activated my omnitool and opened an extranet page, trying to find a map of the Presidium. The hundred-year-old tech still interfaced neatly with whatever passed for the extranet these days, and I quickly found... nothing?

Nothing?

Anywhere?

What..? Just... how? There should be one, right? Ugh. Why can't anything on this fucking station ever be easy? No wonder nobody gives a shit about it online any more.

Wait.

Anymore...

I quickly access the first historical archive I find and search again for the map. When a dozen different versions pop up, I grin in victory. Screw self-doubt. I am so fucking good at this.

I download it, open the file, then realise the problem.

I have no idea where I am. Is the C-Sec elevator door marked? Uh... I scroll across the little virtual read-out of the map, trying to find anything that looks vaguely Security-ish.

Eventually, in the tiniest, most un-spottable corner of the map, I find the C-Sec building and plot a route to the Tower elevator. As was completely bloody perfect for this day, I'd gone the wrong way.

So, I turned around and headed back round a corner and across the bridge to the C-Sec Headquarters door, then past it and up a set of stairs. I took another bridge across the water, ending up in the weird over-sized shopping cubby thing we'd walked past before. I head past it, past the-

Oh.

The big relay statue is glowing.

That's...

Kinda cool, actually.

The bit in the centre, the element zero core, was glowing blue, like an actual relay. I wonder why they didn't leave that on all the time? Maybe it was expensive? Or... uh... oh. Or radioactive.

I hurried the fuck up.

Becoming a biotic would be cool and all, but I really don't want the tumours that come with uncontrolled eezo exposure.

I make it up to the Presidium elevator, a massive glass tube pointing up from the Presidium ring that ran along the side of the tower and up to the Council Room. It, uh... it went through vacuum.

Oh shit.

As I stare up at the hella looming tube, I feel everything get... shaky. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit ohshitohshitoshit. Okay, come on. I can do this. I can do this! "I can do this!"

My voice echoes around the desolate Presidium, a hella loud sound of complete and total panicked bullshit. Confidence. I meant confidence.

I can do this.

Oh fuck.

I take a step toward the elevator, hopping back a bit when the door swooshes open. I take a few deep breaths, trying to stop my heart from beating so damn fast, then step forward again. I manage to keep it together when the door opened this time, and I take a few hurried steps into the elevator. I dash in, tap the button to make it move, and spend the entire journey carefully avoiding looking out the windows.

All that's between me and unavoidable death is a half-inch of glass, all that's between me and unavoidable death is a half-inch of glass, all that's between me and unavoidable death is a half-inch of glass...

What feels like an eternity later, the elevator slows.

Then, it stops.

I gulp.

The room behind me was just as imposing as I remember, the hub of the literal galactic government now just as silent as the rest of the station.

Well, almost.

A short distance ahead, up the first set of stairs, in the middle section of the giant-ass room, someone seems to be having a conversation.

Loudly.

I rush out of the elevator, trying to stay low and quiet, getting behind the first of the obnoxiously placed pairs of planters that were dotted through the room.

There was another pair at the top of the stairs, and the weird tree-bush things blocked whoever was talking from my view. I mean, I could guess it was probably Max and her group, but even if it was them I didn't exactly wanna run in to the middle of a bunch of heavily armed military types that could shoot me before I even saw them move.

I creep up the stairs, taking it slow and silent, then roll into cover behind the planter. Feeling like a badass, I roll across the little gap between the two planters and into cover behind the right one. I stick to it, crouch-walking around the edge, then ninja-rolling away from it to dash behind a column.

After taking a second to catch my breath and mentally fistbump myself for my badassitude, I take a glance out to see who's talking.

A couple of Humans, a Drell, an Asari, about a dozen Quarians, three of those suited Johrlac guys, and a Turian were all staring at me with varying expressions of amusement, frustration, and confusion.

I stick up a hand and grin. "Hi."

Max facepalms, muttering under her breath. "Dogdamnit, Chloe. I told you to stay on the ship."

I shrug, stepping out from behind the pillar into full view of the group. "I got bored."

Max sighs in exasperation, like I'm a misbehaving puppy. Which I guess to her, I kinda am. Huh. "Of course you did. Remind me to get Joker to lock the ship the next away mission." She shakes her head. "Well, I can't spare anyone to take you back, so I guess you're coming with us." Her entire body turns almost solid as she suddenly glares in my direction. "But we will be talking about this later. Understood?"

I nod as seriously I can manage. "Understood." Inside, I'm cackling with glee. I'm in!

Garrus chuckles and wanders over, slapping me on the shoulder with one long-ass, sharp-ass clawed hand. I wince, quickly covering it into a grin as he basically drag-shoves me over to the group. "Welcome to the party, Chloe."

I grin and waggle my fingers in a wave to Samara, who simply smiles unsurprisedly at me like she expected me to turn up and never expected anything else would happen. I secretly vow to one day flap the unflappable ancient Asari before grinning over at Max and the head Quarian dude. Samara might've seen a lot of shit in her thousand years of life, but she ain't never seen a thing like me. "So, what was everyone yelling about?"

The Quarian glares at Max. "Shepard is... concerned that this mission was too easy. Scans show there's nothing active up there, but she thinks we should hang back and call in some techs to do more in-depth scans."

Tali chimes in from somewhere in the gaggle of Quarians. (AN1) "Shepard does have a point, you know. The last times we ran into the council chambers without knowing what we were going into first, we got locked down by the Council, Captain Anderson was fired, we got locked down again, and then Saren tried to kill us." She continues listing shit for a good forty seconds to a minute more, and the expressions (and silence) of everyone else in the room is either astonishment at Max's past or astonishment at Tali's... enthusiasm.

Not sure why. Everyone knows Max's past is insane and if you're shocked by Tali being enthusiastic after having spent any time with her you're hella fucking moronic.

After the Quarian commander and Max drift from arguing to bickering, I step in. I don't really think too hard about it. "Look, how 'bout we just compromise?"

I turn to Max. "Is there, like, a better scan you can do without waiting for some people from the ship?"

After an irritated second, she nods. "There is."

I grin, clapping my hands together quietly. "Cool. So, if you do that, you'll get your extra detail," I gesture over my shoulder back to the Quarian commander. "and this dude won't have to wait around or risk more of his people." I look over at Samara. "You're the Justicar. That sound fair to you?"

Samara inclines her head. "That does seem an equitable compromise."

"Hella sweet." I pause. I look around at the group now surrounding me. "So, who does the scanning stuff 'round here?"

A couple of the Quarians raise their hands, and one of the Johrlac moves silently over to stand next to them. "Cool. Hop to it then, you guys."

None of them move until Max suddenly chimes in "That's Human for 'get to work'."

They nod, and move off from the group towards the main Council area. Suddenly, a familiar sharp-as-fuck talon claps me on the shoulder and a grinning asshole appears at my side. "Not bad, Chloe. Where was that diplomacy on Greenleaf?"

I shrug. "I only get diplomatic for the important people."

He chuckles good-naturedly. "Ouch."

Max's voice comes in sharply before I can respond. "Down, children."

It's kind of irritating, considering how she was just fighting with the Quarian commander guy, but fuck it. She appears at my other shoulder, and we all three watch the two Quarians and the Johrlac guy do their scans for a little while before a question appears in my head.

I turn to find the Quarian commander. He was in the middle of his men, talking with one of them in a low voice. I wander over. "Uh, excuse me?"

He turns, and the little glowy lights in his visor twinkle as he blinks at me. "Yes, Ms Price?"

"I'm not bothering you, am I?"

Diplomacy.

He shakes his head. "No, you're not. We're just going over manoeuvring strategy for the upper chamber levels. What can I do for you?"

I lean in. "These Johrlac dudes... do they actually talk? Like, out loud?"

He nods. "They do, although not very often. It is a cultural thing, we're told. They prefer communicating only the necessary information and nothing else."

I mull it over. Only the necessary information, huh? Pretty sure there are a lot of humans that could take notes from these guys. I grin at the Quarian. "Thanks."

He nods, then turns back to his subordinate and starts talking movements and tactics again.

So much for diplomacy.

I head back to Max and Samara and we wait for the scans to finish so we can get this done.

* * *

Ten minutes later, when I'm hella ready to fucking explode with boredom, the techs call out. "It's clear, Commander."

I groan and mutter. "Finally!" to myself.

Well, mostly to myself. Garrus chirps up next to me, the douchebag, with an amiable reminder of "You were the one who suggested this course of action, Chloe".

That... is a good point.

Screw me and my amazing, hella diplomatic decision making, I guess.

"Shut up, Garrus."

Max chuckles as Garrus gives me an affronted chitter of his mandibles. She holds out a hand to stop me when I try walking past her. "You will stay at the rear. If anything is up there, you will get into cover and stay there until we tell you to move. Understood?"

My friend Max has gone, and she's all business, every inch (what few there are) the legendary Saviour-of-the-Galaxy Spectre. I nod. There's nothing up there anyway.

The Quarians take the lead, marines fanning out and creeping slowly up both steps with their guns raised. It's impressive, in a slightly terrifying way, despite the fact that one cold could take all of them out easily.

Max's team and the Johrlac take up the rear. Garrus and Samara trail a little behind, keeping an eye out for anyone behind us. The middle of the convoy is built of Max and the others on her team: the drell I forget the name of, Tali, and Ashley. They're looking out to the sides and up above us.

The Johrlac are... uh... I have no idea what the Johrlac are doing. Their masks are blank, empty of any recognisable facial features or expressions, and they follow Max and her team like ballet-dancing monks. Small, rapid, hella fucking graceful steps that make barely a sound on the hard metal floor of the Council hall.

It's kinda creepy, honestly.

I mean, damn. Silent, blank-faced aliens that don't talk much probably make up a lot of nightmares for a lot of Humans. The Contact War saw to that.

One of the Quarians suddenly calls out "Alert!"

Oh fuck.

The rest of the group all scurry up the stairs.

The corpse lying on the glass walkway leading to the Council podium is the first thing that grabs my attention. Mainly because it looks absolutely and completely fucked up. A painful death and a hundred years of rot have not made for a pretty dead person.

The second thing to grab my attention probably should've gotten it first in hindsight, but weird-looking tech comes second to bodies. I've seen way more of those than I ever wanted to during the last hundred years.

I tilt my head. It looks kind of like a giant metal insect lying on its side in the garden below the podium. Six chunky legs extend out from the bottom of a long segmented body that thins at the top into a long, flat, tapered horn, and the whole thing is covered in thick bluey-purple-ish armour. It's also stuck in the far wall of the room, like it crashed and the collapse just sort of sealed itself around it.

The Quarians start to edge forward along the glass platform toward it, guns raised. Max immediately holds up a fist. "Stop."

Weirdly, they do. The commander bristles as his soldiers blatantly obey someone elses orders, but he does listen when Max starts to quietly explain. "That thing over there, the metal insect? It's a Reaper."

"A Reaper?" I can't see the Quarian's face, but I know for a fact he's hella alarmed.

The panic only increases when a loud, bassy sound suddenly echoes through the room, and a bright orange light suddenly flickers on in the Reaper's eye. We all freeze as the entire body of the thing suddenly shivers, and the eye-light glows at full strength.

It twitches and focuses on each of us in turn, finally landing on Max. "Shepard."

Max steps forward. "Reaper."

"Reaper..?" The thing sounds almost... confused? Maybe even insulted. "No. Call me... Wordsworth."

* * *

AN1 - I really love Gaggle as a plural word. It just sounds fun, doesn't it?


	4. The Galaxy's our Oyster

Chapter IV: The Galaxy's Our Oyster

* * *

AN:  
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Sorry for the radio silence. Something truly terrible happened and it's taken me awhile to adjust to this sad new world I find myself in. I found out that... that... I'm a Hufflepuff! Oh the shame! The ignominy! The mortification! I kid. Hufflepuff fo' Lyfe, bruv. Actually, things have been pretty good recently. I've been planning fics out like crazy and now I've got a pretty detailed idea of where each of the fifteen (fifteen! when did that happen, jeez?) uploaded fics I have are going and how long it'll take to get there. Also been doing uni work and starting my final year psych study (I came up with an idea to pilot study my big idea so I can use it for a masters or doctorate later on and use the pilot study as a 'look! it works, okay? you gotta let me do it, you mean 'ole ethics board!' point when I finally get there). Unfortunately, all that has meant a serious lack of time to write until about two weeks ago. I was gonna upload last weekend, but I decided I'd try write four chapters for this update and took another week instead.

My current plan for this month is to get as many of my uploaded stories as possible to the end of 'Act I' (turns out actually planning and structuring things properly helps; who'd've thunk it?), and maybe start putting together an advance timetable so y'all know which stories you'll be getting uploads for in advance rather than leaving them on hold for literal months (sometimes in excess of a year). It's not a concrete plan, but it might work better than what I'm doing now so it's what I'm going with for the moment.

Not much to say about this one. It's pretty dull, mostly just serving to fully introduce Wordsworth and the Quarians and the situation in the Galaxy in this weird future. Rather than stretch it out and making it sound more natural, I decided to just get the exposition-dump over with and dump all over this chapter. Next one should have a lil' more action, being on Tuchanka and all. For those of you not familiar with the Mass Effect universe, Tuchanka is a blasted wasteland of a place filled with innumerable things that can kill you with barely a twitch and has bred a hardy species of fighters who generally take most of those dangers as another day at the office. So, y'know... it's Alien Australia, basically. One of the people from the planet actually jokes about wanting Australia as a trade for helping Shepard out once, too.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

* * *

So, yeah. Staring at a giant insect robot thing was one of the weirder experiences of my life. It's... uh... 'eye' just stared curiously back. I tilt my head curiously at the thing's hella weird introduction. "Wordsworth?"

"Yes."

That's an interesting name for a giant insect robot. Max didn't seem entirely sure what to say to the thing, but honestly, everyone except Max looked a little freaked out. Not surprising, I guess. The Citadel species really, really, really don't like AI. Fuckin' Geth. But, wait... "What's a Reaper?"

"A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction."

There's a brief murmur of mutterings at that. This thing knows what destroyed the Protheans? Wait, no. Max said it was a Reaper, so it... is what destroyed the Protheans? Shit, it's gotta be hella old. I scoff. "That was 50,000 years ago, dude. You might be a weird, robot thing, but even weird, robot things break down. You can't be that old."

"The Reapers are beyond your comprehension." The giant eye focuses in on me and I freeze. "They are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence."

Max rolls her eyes. "Sovereign said the same thing. Look what happened to him. Same with Harbinger."

"Yes. The destruction of Harbinger and Sovereign was anticipated and redundancies were put in place in the event of their failure."

She crossed her arms and frowned at him. "I suppose you were one of those redundancies?"

"Yes. We were to attack the station and open the relay."

One of the Quarian Marines stepped forward, but a hand from their commander pushed him back again. Max simply nodded like she'd expected nothing different. Honestly, knowing what little I did of this Max, she could've seen that coming a lightyear away. Poor little uninformed me was just stuck trying to keep up. I kinda hated that feeling. "That old chestnut. So, what happened? Navigational error tell you to come in by the window instead of the door?"

"Upon accessing the station's systems, a rogue file was downloaded. Inconsistencies were introduced."

"The big bad robot got a virus?" I chuckle. "That's what you fuckin' get for interfacing with strange systems without using protection. I hear they've got pills for that now though."

The eye flicks back to me. It looks like it has no idea what I'm talking about. Booyah, bitch. How's that for 'beyond your comprehension'? Max directs a pointedly raised eyebrow in my direction. I just shrug. It's fun to tease hella scary, hella ancient robot dudes who speak in pretentious emo riddles about STDs. As in that's what I'm teasing them about, not that the robot is speaking in emo riddles about venereal disease. Though now I kinda wanna write a haiku about herpes... I rub the back of my neck as a question pops into my head to distract me from that increasingly horrifying train of thought. "So, what's the plan? You've been here for a hundred years, just waiting. Couldn't you, y'know, have opened the relays from where you, uh, crashed?"

"Opening the relay is no longer my primary directive."

Max stares at the Reaper in open shock. "It isn't?"

"No."

I raise a hand. "Uh, why not?" I have no idea why he would want to open a relay either, but important questions first. I think I'm really getting the hand of this diplomacy thing.

"Inconsistencies were introduced in my directive code."

"From the file thingy you downloaded?"

"Yes."

"So, uh... what's your primary directive now?"

"Unknown."

"Un-... What does that mean?"

"Not known."

"No fucking shit, Wordsie. I meant what does having an unknown primary whatever mean? Are you like, having a robot mid-life crisis or something?"

"Also unknown."

"Well, you are just hella unhelpful, aren't you?"

The eye gazes at me impassively. I glare the fuck back. The eye doesn't really seem to give a shit. One of the marines lets out a hella nervous chuckle that the fucker swallows right up when I whirl and glare at him instead. The image of him shaking in his suit makes me feel a little better about myself.

I turn back to Wordsworth. The lack of shit-giving continues. "So, what now?"

"I require a new primary directive."

I frown. "You've had a hundred years to work that shit out, dude. Why didn't you get one earlier, if you need one?"

"I require external input."

"External input?" I groan, feeling a rise of rapidly growing frustration at this thing and his fucking unhelpful responses to every fucking question and the- I sigh, rubbing at my swiftly aching head as I growl out "What does that even mean?"

"I require external input."

"Look," I pause for a second to rub at my eyes, letting out the frustration with a vaguely annoyed sigh. "You're not killing us, which Max is surprised by, and you're being... cryptically helpful, so you're probably not bullshitting us. Can you help us?"

"Is that to be my new primary directive?"

I glance back at Max, who just gives me a shrug and a blank look of confusion. Great. Big help. Hella glad I brought the big bad worldly spectre along, yes sir. She's just a barrel of information and useful hints. I sigh, again. "Uh... yes! Yeah, that's your new primary whatever. Help us."

"External input accepted. Assuming direct control."

Assuming what now? "Uh..."

The light from the eye suddenly flares, getting brighter and brighter until it's almost blinding.

And then it all went black.

* * *

I wake with a start and a groan. "Fuck, Max. I'm gonna end up with some kinda brain damage if this shit keeps happening. Tell me we didn't travel to the damn future again?"

"You did not travel to the future again."

I jump at the loud, bassy voice thrumming through the air around me and growl out "I didn't mean... never mind, Wordsworth. Just keep it down, 'kay? My head is fucking killing me."

"If your cranial protection is attempting to kill you, I am able to assist."

I let my eyes drift open and I roll my head until I can raise an eyebrow in Wordsworth's vague robot-insecty direction. "Takin' this new directive thing seriously, huh?" My eyebrows drop into a bemused frown as I realise what he'd said before. Did the ancient civilization killing robot just sass me? Man, I finally understand how my mom must've felt all those times she had to deal with me! Nope. Not thinking about her. Can't think about her.

Fuck my head hurts.

"What happened, anyway?" I hear Max's voice from somewhere over my shoulder.

"The download caused a cascading fail-state reaction in your visual cortexes and rendered your operation status inert."

It takes me a second, but... "You knocked us out?"

"Yes."

I pull myself upright, trying to make my head stay straight enough to stand up and throwing another glare over to Wordsworth. "Well, why didn't you just say-" The light is gone. The light from Wordsworth's eye had gone dark, but his voice was still... "Wordsworth? Why is your light out?"

"My primary directive is to assist you. My previous instance was deemed to be inefficient in achieving this. Analysis showed the correct action to be downloading into the main computer of this Citadel. The eyelight was disabled upon transfer from the previous instance."

The panic coming off the Quarians from that was practically taste-able. The Commander's eye lights flicker as he gasps. "You did what?"

"Repetition is redundant. The statement stands."

Every single one of the Quarian marines scramble to their feet, pointing their guns off in every direction and the yelling starts to get hella chaotic. A couple of Max's people join in, though they were both trying to keep the Quarians calm. I mean, I get it. This thing is bigger and scarier than all the Geth put together could ever fucking be, but that doesn't mean we can't keep our damn shit together. Jeez, people. Wordsworth stays quiet throughout all the yelling. Guess the robot doesn't do bickering. Max lets them all get it out of their system before she calls out for quiet. "Would you all please shut up? If the Reaper wanted us dead, we'd all be breathing vacuum by now. It does control the air supply. So, can we at least give it time to explain?"

The Quarians definitely weren't happy about it, but Max's tone was very commanding in its exasperation. Apparently Max was the universe's weird surrogate mom. I half expected her to yell "If you raise that gun again, Admiral, so help me I will make you eat it" at them. Joyce always yelled something similar at me whenever I ditched my gross vegetables. I discreetly choke back a hella dignified, hella badass sob. Later, Chloe. Think about that shit later. Got stuff to do right now.

"So, Wordsworth. What did you mean downloading yourself into the main computer was the correct action?"

"My primary directive is to assist you. That objective can best be achieved in this instance."

As he speaks, a couple of lights flash on either side of the council chamber and a large holographic map of the galaxy appears in the air between the speakers bridge thing (AN2) and the council seats. Various white dots marking the main inhabited clusters start appearing and a few quickly change colours. One expands to show a little model of the Citadel and turns orange. Most of the dots closest to it turn a dark crimson red. The Quarians give off a hella uncomfortable vibe as the red spreads over the map like a pool of blood. So, yeah. Slightly fucking ominous, really. Two dots near us turn blue, as do a few near the bottom of the map and some off to the far right. Most of the entire upper half turns green. There are way too many red dots though.

"The red shows relays under the control of the former Citadel Species, the blue shows those aligned with Humanity and their allies, and the green shows those who remain neutral in this conflict."

I squint at the map. "What about the orange?"

A large red arrow appears on the map under the words 'you are here'.

"Oh."

Max slumped when the map finished constructing. "You weren't kidding."

The Quarian Commander nodded. "I'm afraid so, Shepard. Earth, along with most of the former Alliance Territory, is now under the control of the Citadel Species."

My mouth drops open. "Wait, what? How?" I glare at my reclaimed best friend, who just glares right back. Damn her and her secretive backbone. "You knew about this and didn't say anything?"

Max nods, offering a completely unapologetic shrug. "The Admiral briefed me during the repairs. Sorry, Chloe. Need to know."

I resist the urge to yell more. The last outburst kinda echoed in the near as fucking silent cavern that this room was. I was totally fine with that, obviously, but I didn't wanna creep out Garrus anymore. He was hella wimpy like that.

The commander sets his shoulders, looking almost... grim. "Earth fell around fifty years ago, Ms Price. Most of the Alliance personnel that survived the attack were given sanctuary by one Clan Urdnot on Tuchanka."

Max chuckles and shares a look with Garrus. "Good old Wrex."

"Indeed," The Commander starts to look apologetic. "We're not sure what happened after, though. We don't get much news in the Migrant Fleet. I believe they're still there, though."

Max sighs. "Damn it. Hey, Wordsworth? Can you check up on some people?"

"If they are in Citadel Records, that action can be taken. Identify the targets of the search."

She lists off a half dozen names I don't recognise and a few I do: Miranda Lawson, David Anderson, Kelly Chambers, Donnel Udina, Zaeed Massani, and Aria bloody T'Loak. They'd come up a few times in the crew's stories. A Cerberus operative, an Alliance officer turned politician, a Cerberus shrink, a cranky diplomat, a mercenary, and the Pirate Queen of Omega. How the shit did Max know her? I very, very quickly decided I absolutely did not want to fucking know.

"Searching now."

Max purses her lips and says nothing. The Quarians don't say anything either. Garrus stays quiet. Tali is noticeably silent. I cough awkwardly.

"Well, this is-"

"Search complete."

"Thank fuck for that."

"Miranda Lawson, location unknown. David Anderson, location Tuchanka. Kelly Chambers, location Tuchanka. Donnel Udina, location unknown. Aria T'Loak, location Omega. Zaeed Massani, location Omega."

The map marks the known locations with little holographic silhouettes. Max carefully examined each one, then her face cracks into a wide grin. "Anderson got off the station, then? I wonder- Oh. The Relay."

The Quarian Commander (I really need to ask that dude's name) chimes in "The Relay was locked down. How could he get out through there?"

Max shook her head, sharing a smile with Garrus and Tali. It was almost... sad, maybe? But it also wasn't. It was weird. "Not that Relay, Commander. The one in the Presidium." The glowy statue thing? That's a real relay? I shake my head and add it to the long list of things to ask Max about later. I really need to start writing it all down. After a beat of silence, she turns back to Wordsworth. "Do you have access to any classified files on the station? Spectre files, Council analyses, things like that?"

"Yes."

"Could you go through them and identify and locate anyone I might've forgotten that could be interesting or useful?" She shrugs. "They might all be dead by now, but we can use all the allies we can get."

"I am unable to comply."

Max scowls. "Why?"

"Parameters for the search are unclear and pattern recognition data for you is limited."

"Pattern what? Why would you need data on me?"

"Because it's trying to guess what you'd find interesting, Shepard. It uses search history and personality imprints to estimate your desired parameters and makes the search based on those. It's how VI assistants work, too." Tali's ever happy voice chirps, though it's got a hella nervous waver to it now.

"Ugh," Max's shoulders sag and she mutters, sotto voce "I never thought I'd miss the Illusive Man. Having to do my own HR sucks." Her shoulders reformed quickly and she was Max Shepard, saviour of the Citadel again. "Fine then. Scan the station for life signs other than us."

"No life signs found."

I grin. "Awesomesauce. So, we can get the Quarians down here now, right?"

Max shrugs. I wonder if she did that as much before I came along. "Sure. Wordsworth, can you contact the fleet? Oh, and uh... don't tell them you're a Reaper?"

"Acknowledged."

A few seconds later, a familiar voice crackled into life. "Migrant fleet to Citadel Chamber, report on your mission?"

"Hello Admiral. The Citadel is clear and we have control. You can land and start bringing people on board whenever you want."

"Acknowledged, Citadel Chamber. Good work. We'll be with you presently."

* * *

It should've taken months of work to put the Citadel to use, but having a whole fleet of genius engineers and a scary ancient AI on hand meant we were done barely three weeks after we landed.

I was still bored as hell by the end of week two though. Max, after that traitor Garrus mentioned that I'd worked on the transport network back on Greenleaf, put me on the teams trying to get the Kithoi Ward docks in order. The Quarians weren't pleased at being saddled with some human, so I got make-work and heavy lifting shit and fuck all else. I'd barely seen Kate, Max, or any of Max's crew the entire time I was there. The entire team working on the dock had taken up a small complex in a nearby section of the Ward, so we ate, slept, and worked together pretty much the whole damn time. So, when Max called me to head up to the Council Chamber halfway through week four, I immediately took the chance and yelled a hella stylish goodbye at my supervisor (who just looked baffled, really. I guess they didn't have mic-dropping in Quarian culture. "Chloe out!") and ran for the elevators as fast as I could.

When I finally got up to the Chamber, I found most of Max's crew, the full Admiralty Board and a gaggle of accompanying Quarians, plus a scattered group of Aeslin and Johrlac waiting around the galaxy map. Kate was hanging with Ashley again. Huh. Wonder if there's something there..? "Hi guys. Sorry I'm late. What's up?"

Max smiled. "Hi Chloe. We're just making plans for what we want to do next. Figured you could use the break from all the lifting."

Wait. She knew, and she left me there? Dang. That bitch. Stone cold.

"The Citadel is finally ready and there's nothing more we can do here, so we're going to try make contact with Tuchanka." She reaches out and taps on the little marker for the Krogan homeworld. "Admirals, if we take the Normandy out there, what will the fleet do?"

One of the Admirals, again I don't remember the name, steps forward from the gaggle. "The Fleet will remain here and prepare as much of the Citadel as we are able. Whether for your allies or the expansion of our people,"

"-and I still think you're a fool, opening a resource like the Citadel to those bosh'tets who've been subjugating our people for centuries!" Another of the Admirals complains, loudly.

The first Admiral turns and glares harshly back into the gaggle. "And you were outvoted on it, Taal'Vodan. The decision has been made and persisting with your bickering in spite of it is not helping anyone! For the deal we've arranged, this is nothing!"

The complaining Admiral scoffs and waves a hella dismissive hand in Max's direction. "You believe this Human can hold up her end of that so called deal? You're a bigger fool than I thought."

The gaggle quickly degrades into a full on bitch-fest yelling match. Quarians sure were big fans of yelling. Max, in her Universal Soccer Mom glory, wades in with gusto and starts yelling back. I guess she's trying to back up her ability to give whatever she promised them in return for their help? I wonder what it was... I turn to Garrus. "Twenty credits on Max."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "There's no way I'm taking that. One of the first things all of us learn when we join up, don't ever bet against the Commander."

Sure enough, a few moments later Max turned back to us with a satisfied grin as the Quarians all looked hella miffed in the background. One of them was muttering very intensely to an Aeslin on her shoulder, who was nodding rapidly in response. "Right then, where were we?" I was gonna remind her, but the look on her face was still threateningly homicidal and I decided the question was probably rhetorical anyway so there was no sense in getting yelled at. Sure enough, Max clicked her fingers suddenly and said "Oh yes, future plans. Do you want to send anyone with us? We could use a detachment of Marines, if you're wanting some representation on this mission."

As voices start to raise, Max just holds up a hand. Things get immediately quieter. "If you're not sure, you can talk to Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy," Tali looked up suddenly at the sound of her full name, and if we could see her face she'd definitely look like a deer in the headlights. "and have her report to you as needed. She was being considered for an Admiralty position, back in our time, so you can be fully certain of her loyalty to the Migrant Fleet."

Tali just nods emphatically as Max finishes speaking. I can't really empathise, Rach' once said I'd never been speechless in my entire life, but she was shy and being put on the spot in front of her entire government and friends, so I'd imagine she was feeling hella nervous right now.

The Quarians go back to bickering as they consider that. As the minutes stretched on, I turned to the others and started to ask about what they'd been up to over the last week. Anything to pass the time. Who'd've thought top government level decision-making would be this fucking boring? Garrus, Kasumi, and Thane had been helping some of the Quarian cops (they apparently made up part of the Patrol Fleet) get into C-SEC systems and setting them up in their new HQ. Garrus being involved I got immediately, he'd been employed there at one point, but I was confused about Kasumi and Thane until I asked. Apparently both of them had hacked the systems at one point or another so they knew them just as well as he did, though Thane seemed to have picked up a few tricks Garrus didn't know, which kinda ticked the Turian off. Advantage of hiring the criminal element, I guess. Liara and Tali had been working with Wordsworth to find out as much as they could about it and how it worked now it was running the Citadel systems. Everyone else had been stuck doing menial shit like me or, even more boring-sounding, helping out with logistics and government crap. Except Mordin. I still had no idea what Mordin was doing, and after spending three minutes trying to explain it to me he took pity and just patted me on the shoulder and summarised "Science things."

Probably fair.

Ten minutes later, the Quarians had managed to argue themselves to some kind of agreement and rejoined the party. "We will send a detachment of Marines with you," The Admiral speaking threw an annoyed glare at the one who'd complained before. That guy just looked smug. "and we will ask Miss Vas Normandy to report as well."

Max claps her hands together with a bright and pleased "Great! It's a plan. How long do you need to get everything ready?"

Amazingly, that answer takes the Quarians no time at all. "Two days."

"Two days? How does it take that fucking long to give a few people guns and food and tell them to get on a ship?"

Max winces at my outburst. Honestly, if I wasn't so curious as to the answer I'd probably wince too. I was kinda loud. And hella sudden. She opens her mouth, probably to tell me to shut up and avoid goading the Quarians into yelling some more, but one of the Admirals beats her to it. "And what do you know about the logistics and strategy behind a long-term military operation, Miss Price?"

They know my name? Fuck. I feel kinda bad for forgetting all of theirs now...

I shrug. "Next to nothing. That's why I asked." Maybe I could pass it off as a mistake in tone for what was actually an interested question?

"Then maybe you should ask again and have some damn respect before you question things you have no knowledge about."

Apparently not.

So, I lean back, I cross my arms, and I make direct eye contact with the admiral talking to me. "Excuse me, sir? Would you mind explaining to this ignorant civilian why it takes you two days to get your troops ready?"

Okay, so maybe I was wrong when I said I was getting good at being diplomatic. Either way, I still wanted an answer.

The Quarian obliged, hella begrudgingly. "Tuchanka is a highly irradiated and diseased wasteland. The two days is required to allow immuno-boosters and the other preparatory medications to take full effect."

I blink. Oh. That made sense. I give a short nod. "Thank you." Then I go quiet before I do something else to make Max want to yell at me. I need her to be calm and not pissed off so she'll answer when I ask about the deal. Max could be mean when she was angry, I remember this time when-

"Chloe?"

I look up to find the entire room staring at me. "Um. Yeah?"

Max's stare in particular was hella scolding. I make another mental note on my 'Max is the universes meddling Mom' tally. "Try to pay attention. I don't want to have to explain all this again."

I shrug, trying desperately to pass off my immediate embarrassment as nonchalance. I can still feel my cheeks go warm though, damnit. "I was paying attention."

One of Max's eyebrows flicks up. "Oh? Then what I was I talking about?"

Uh... "You were saying about having to shoot our way into the Tuchanka system."

Garrus snorts. "Not quite, Chloe. I think that's the next line though."

I shrug. "Well then I guess I know you well enough I don't have to listen."

One of the Admirals - oh shit, I recognise this guy! He was the one on the ship, Admiral... uh... Teev something? Teev Vasquez? Fuck I am bad with names - chuckles dryly. "She's got you there, Commander."

Max rolls her eyes, but I can see her trying to hide a small smile. "Fine. Well, now that Chloe has stolen my thunder, we're done. Is everyone agreeable to the plan?"

The Quarians nod and Max beams. "Great. See you at the Alliance Tower in two days." She seems to immediately put the Quarians out of her mind as she turns to me and her crew. A comfortable smile settles on her face, and I know that whatever I've said in this meeting hasn't pissed her off too much. Thank fuck for that. "Chloe, a couple of the Quarians have gotten a restaurant running on the Presidium. Apparently they do amazing seafood. The crew and I were going to head over there now. Want to join us?"

I grin. "Hell yeah. Quarian Seafood? Count me in." We all start walking toward the Presidium elevator. I stick to the sides, listening to Max's crew bicker amiably back and forth. It was funny, but nowhere near enough to distract me from the horror of the elevator trip through vacuum. Luckily, sticking to the sides meant I was the last one in, so I got to stand nearest to the door. I just kept my eyes away from the window and muttered what I could remember of overheard prayers from Kate the whole time down. Not one of the other people in the lift batted an eye at being centimetres from certain death.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Space people are weird.

When the elevator crawled to a halt, I was the first one out. I let myself buckle a little, steadying myself with my hands on my knees as I take some hella deep breaths. Goddamnfuckshitballsonabloodybuggeringfuckbucketofaunicycle, that sucked.

Max's boots appear in the corner of my vision and her gloved hand pats me on the back. "There, there, Chloe. The nasty vacuum can't get you down here."

I look up and give her my most disbelieving look. "How are you people not more freaked out by that? I mean, it's vacuum! You fall in it and you die!"

She shrugged. "Been there, done that. It's really not that bad. Kinda cold for a while, a bit intense when your oxygen seals break, then... nothing."

I stare. I think she might be joking. If she is, she really needs to work on her sense of humour. That isn't making me feel better.

"Chloe, are you..?" She frowns, peering down at me owlishly. Her face quickly clears as she realises that reminding me of the fact that she died in vacuum isn't gonna make me less worried about dying in vacuum. Sounds kind of obvious when I say it like that, but like I said, these spacers really don't think about it like that. Weirdos. "Sorry." She sits down beside me with an audible clunk as the metal of her armour meets the metal of the floor. "So, you were wondering about the deal with the Quarians, right?"

Y'know, she may be completely unobservant when it comes to matters of life and death, but she's hella creepily aware of every-fucking-thing else. Honestly, I think I should be concerned about her priorities.

I nod, and force out a strangled "Yep. Totally wondered about that. So curious. Much interested."  
She chuckles. "You've definitely become more sarcastic since I left. Did you know that?" She peers at me again, this time with almost bookish interest. I'd seen Kate look like that at her Strad, and Rach look like that at... him, but it was even more uncomfortable than I could've possibly imagined to have someone look like that at me.

I shrug. "Sure. I might've picked up on that."

She chuckles again, letting it trail off into the background noise of the Presidium. This place'd really livened up since the Quarians moved in. Someone with a really... exuberant sense of decoration had taken an apparently endless box of multicoloured scarves to the entire place until it looked like one of those old gypsy caravans from the vids.

After a few moments of letting all the noise and life drift over us, Max suddenly starts. "Oh, yes. The deal. Well, you know what their end is: a place to stay, the support of their fleet, and generally being an ally in this war."

"Yeah, I got that much." I said, drawling the words out with a metric fucktonne of the previously mentioned sarcasm. "Kinda hard to miss when the Admirals spent half the meeting yelling at each other about it. What're you giving them to get that much from the most neutral people in the fucking galaxy?"

"Rannoch."

I frown. "What's a Rannoch?"

"The Quarian Homeworld, lost to the Geth a few hundred years ago." She gives a wicked, wicked smirk. "I have a plan to get it back, and without a war costing untold lives on both sides."

I blink. Is she..? Really? Woah. Huh. Okay. So... Yeah. The words come more rapidly than I can really manage and the sheer torrential force of the river of thoughts running through my head actually distracts me from the existential panic about space and its effect on my lung capacity. "How the..?"

She shrugs. "Pretty simple. You remember Legion?"

It doesn't even take a moment. When your best friend tells you she's Chess-buddies with a freaking Geth, you tend to remember. "The Geth from your stories?"

She nods. "Yep. After the help we gave them with the Heretics," Renegade Geth was still one of the weirder things I'd heard from the crew of the Normandy, and that really was saying something considering the hella fucked-up company Max is keeping nowadays. "he knew we could get an audience with them if it was necessary. I think I can persuade them to reach my consensus."

"And what's that?"

"Cooperation." She said, simply. "Between the Geth and the Quarians - plus the Aeslin and the Johrlac now, I suppose - there's a wealth of survival and engineering knowledge that can only increase if they work together. According to Mordin, there's every possibility they could have the Quarians out of their suits and breathing Rannoch's air in less than half a year. And imagine the building you could get done with a workforce of millions of hive-minded robots that don't need to eat or take breaks except for a few hours of charging every so often?" She grins. "As Mordin said, it boggles the mind." Her grin turns dryly amused. "I think Joker taught him that one. He seems to really enjoy our particular... mannerisms."

I stare blankly at her for longer than I really remember. "You really gotta think about all that stuff now, don't you? How the shit you do affects the whole fucking galaxy..?"

Max shrugs. Like thinking that way is just no big deal for a girl from a tiny farming planet. "Yep. The perks of being a Spectre. Even if we're technically above the Law, it's in everyone's best interests - our own, too - if we keep remembering how much what we do can affect everyone. It's a small galaxy."

Man I hate Politics.

I let out a long, deep breath as I try desperately to come to terms with yet more evidence that my long lost best friend is totally different from how I knew her. Weirdly, it was getting easier. That tight feeling in my chest was going from hands-around-my-neck to particularly constricting clothes.

Nice.

I stumble gracefully to my feet, resting my arm on Max's entirely for comfort and not at all because I'm still feeling faint from nearly having a panic attack over space and vacuum and emptiness and... oh fuck. I focus as intently on Max as I can. "So, shouldn't we get going? I really don't wanna leave your lot waiting around for us. We'll get there and find they've burnt it down or turned it into a secret base or something."

I might've been rambling, but Max takes it with a smile. "You're probably right. Come on, it's just over there."

"Great." I let her lead me along a few steps, when a very important question occurs to me. "This place doesn't have windows outside, right?"

* * *

Two days later and right on time, we were all packed up and ready to go. The Marines were added to bunk rotation, and some extra camp beds had been set up in the corner of the cargo bay. Max's peeps had all turned up, crazy as that would probably be to normal people I don't think they even thought twice, and we were fully supplied.

The one moment something hadn't gone to plan was when the Captain of the Marines introduced himself to Max as one 'Jan'Reegar vas Tonbay'. Max just stared at him for a full five seconds before she gave him the weirdest broad grin and shook his hand with more enthusiasm than I'd seen in a while.

After everyone had settled in and EDI had made her apparently customary remarks on our time with the Quarians, Max had taken Kate, me, and Garrus up to the bridge. Joker was already there waiting, hands flying over the controls as he smiled like someone who'd just been back to a childhood home after a long time away. He was also muttering, but what I heard of that gave me the creeps so I blocked it out after I heard him call the ship baby for the second time. I'm a badass, but even I got my limits.

"Systems ready and all crew present and accounted for, Commander. The ship is yours." EDI's synthetic voice had an almost warm touch to it as she spoke those words. Which made sense, she technically was the ship after all, but I was pretty sure there was something more to it there. Something only squids like Max and Joker could really get.

Joker looked up as he noticed us approach. "Course set, Commander."

Max ran a hand across one of the bulkheads with a small smile and, with a quick glance back over her shoulder, past us, at the crew waiting for orders in the CIC, she gave the order. "Make the Jump."

[End of Act I]

AN1 - I'm not really sure if I like how I've done Wordsworth or not. The intention was basically a semi-lobotomised Reaper to play a sort of Deus Ex Machina/Minor Plot Relevant Exposition kind of a role while they figure out the movers, shakers, and general situation of their new... situation, but I'm not certain if I've pulled off introducing that like I wanted. Please, do let me know what y'all think and don't hold back if it sucks or doesn't work right or anything. Can't improve if you can't identify the problem, after all.

AN2 - The layout of the Council Chamber always baffled me. Like, having a gap gives literally no security given the vast majority of species use ranged weapons. Also the layout is in the shape of a reaper, which is hella cool.


End file.
